this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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you might mean "all of humanity" or "all meat eaters" caused suffering, but, in fact only the individuals who cause suffering have done so, and eating meat does not, in and of itself, cause any suffering at all. if there is any suffering involved, it happens before the meat-eating, and thus cannot be caused by the meat-eating, since an event in the future cannot cause an event in the past.
This is about the logic of "bullets kill people, not guns"
no, it's not. bullets fired from guns kill people, but there is no similar causal system at play that can traverse time and kill animals in the past
Come on, you're better than that. I don't buy that you actually think this is a valid argument.
This logic would apply if you ate the leftovers of game that was culled for specific reasons like keeping the population of deer or whatever at bay. The meat is already there.
But as long as the meat is produced and the animal killed for the purpose of consumption your argument goes down the drain. While supply and demand economics might not be exactly as we were taught in school, you can't deny that a demand for meat influences the scale of meat production. Everyone in the production and consumption chain has blood on their hands.
All I am asking for is for people to be aware of that. You can eat meat. But be aware that there is no good reason to.
"influences" is so weak that i am going to say that you meant "causes". is this a strawman? maybe. but if you're argument relies on the ambiguity of "influence" as opposed to the much stronger "cause" then you're not really saying anything of substance anyway.
so does the decision to eat meat cause meat production in the future? no. a thousand times no. first, and this should be all that needs to be said, farmers and abottoir workers are agents with free will, so their decisions cannot in any meaningful sense be said to be caused by anything except their own will. that should be the beginning and end of it, but consider this additional hypothetical:
if there are three blue pigs in the world, and i kill all three and send them to the butcher shop, when someone buys that pork or bacon or ham, how do we kill more blue pigs? it's impossible. so we can see that even if people lack free will and there is some economic theory that actually showed some causal link where consumption causes production (which is impossible), then we can see that consumption still can't actually cause later production in even this one case, but probably many others.
At this point I really am unsure whether you are just trolling since this is not rocket science.
"Directly impacts" or "contributes to" would be more fitting but weren't you the one talking about semantics?
This is an absolutely unfitting hypothetical because you just rotted out that animal. Have you seen Futurama? The episode about popplers would be more fitting. But ok, I'll roll with the pigs.
You discovered an island with 10 grown blue pigs. You killed two and brought the meat home. You are trying to sell it. Three things can happen.
So far, two animals have died. In which of the three scenarios do you think more animals will be killed in the future?
it's not an analogy. it's a hypothetical. and in my hypothetical you can see that your proposed causation falls apart. even in your amended version, when do i lose free will?
How does any of this have to do with free will?
so long as i can still choose my own actions, i can't say that other people's reactions caused me to act in any way.
Ok, listen, don't get it the wrong way, but I think we should stop this back and forth. I'm completely lost in what you are trying to argue here and what your actual point is. No offense, I just think we completely miss each other in our logic. Because I am sure you are a smart person but I don't see how any of this is connected to my first comment, any of my theses, and to me we are just arguing over some semantics and who's right over a question that doesn't exist. So I call it quits here. I'm on vacation as of today and this is getting exhausting for no good reason or goal.
I don't feel that I ever ask you to respond at all. I feel I've been right this whole time and you just don't understand the topic well enough to discuss it. enjoy your vacation.
this is an appeal to ridicule. youre right that it's not rocket science though: that is provable.
If everyone stopped eating meat, would there still be slaughter houses in 5 years?
this sounds like a good experiment. please let me know the results!