Carnivores aren’t evil because they don’t have a choice in the matter. They are acting on instinct and do not care for ethics. Humans have a choice and moral compass, yet still create unnecessary mass death for personal gain.
As a hypothetical, if lab-grown meat becomes viable and scalable, thus offering a 1:1 replacement for meat, wouldn’t we be evil if we were to reject it just because it didn’t come from a dead animal? If no, why not? If yes, how dissimilar does the meat replacement have to be before humans stop being evil?
I actually eat meat fairly regularly, I’m just curious what other people think about this.
Humans have a choice and moral compass, yet still create unnecessary mass death for personal gain.
We do. And yet that is not all we are. Should one aspect of what it means to be human being valued above the others?
The elevation of critical thinking faculties to being the measure of a man is a very modern post Renaissance concept, one that is slowly losing traction thankfully
“That is not all we are” is not an excuse for unethical behavior. Recognizing the needless death of trillions of innocent, sentient beings is not a critical thinking exercise. It is something one willingly turns a blind eye to.
The elevation of critical thinking faculties to being the measure of a man is a very modern post Renaissance concept, one that is slowly losing traction thankfully
You celebrate the loss of critical thinking right here in your own words.
The elevation of them being the measure of a man is being lost, not the critical thinking skills themselves.
You know that reading comprehension is an aspect of critical thinking right? So is the capacity to engage in the discussion without attacking the speaker?
Point is we don’t have to, and if you acknowledge this along with the fact that our consumption contributes to animal suffering, what does that make us?
I don’t much care for unhelpful labels like “evil,” but it sure isn’t good. It’s not even consistent.
but it doesn’t matter except to you, your friends, and the particular animals you didn’t eat.
Why does the animals’ interest to not be killed not outweigh you and your friends’ desire to end their life and eat their body, instead of plants that give you equal nourishment?
Why is the value of their very life less than the value of your whim?
Wow how it that some people are able to go against the will of their genes (and instincts!!) and forgot forego participating in the Natural Cruelty that is eating other animals! Amazing! Surely we would want to export this incredible gift to as many people as possible, right?
Who said anything about inherently evil? First, evil is a very religiously loaded term, harm or suffering is a better one. And we can absolutely morally judge a behaviour without making sweeping moral judgements about the person or being doing the behaviour.
I’ve been around these arguments enough times to see the discussion inevitably get to this point. We dance around the idea of “is it worth it to go vegan or not?” long enough, until eventually someone concedes that “yes it is better to do, but it’s not practical to ask everyone to do it/you can’t get everyone to go vegan/it won’t solve the problem if we go vegan and do nothing else/etc.”
If you truly think that it’s worth doing, either do it, or admit that you selfishly don’t want to. Don’t try and pretend the climate science backs up your opinions though.
As an aside, this is basically my goodbye letter to Lemmy, so so probably not going to follow up on this thread. The platform is so small that people can’t help but creep into communities that show up in the overall feed. Say what you will about Reddit, but at least there, spaces created specifically for in-groups (like a space called “vegancirclejerk”) didn’t constantly get commenters from the wider world knocking on the door and starting flame wars in the comments. Like, can there be no space for vegans to just fuck around and post memes in peace?
Maybe finally I’ll get some peace by logging off and touching some grass. And then eating the grass, bc I’m vegan btw
Thank you for the comment. I heavily resonate with the last part. I don’t come to vegan communities online to be bombarded with non-vegans making the same terrible arguments, I have enough of that in real life. Leaving Lemmy seems like a more attractive option.
@mojo_raisin It’s because of factory farming which is 97%+ of all production. Factory farmed animals don’t have access to a healthy soil where they would normally get their B12 and other nutrients. That means rising animals for mass consumption is totally wrong.
Same goes with humans. People today are so separated from the healthy soil, they lack B12.
Vegetarian and vegan diets have been around for thousands of years in parts of Asia, well before B12 supplements. Cultures sorted out the nutritional requirements through ingredients, and the lack of B12 in western vegan diets has more to do with common western ingredients than some inherent problem with a plant based diet.
I’m not even vegetarian or vegan, just annoyed with misconceptions about their feasibility.
Vegetarian and vegan diets have been around for thousands of years in parts of Asia, well before B12 supplements.
Vegetarianism yes… veganism I don’t think that’s really plausible.
I think this may come down to different cultures classifying what they consider to be meat.
For example if you go to Korea, it’s really really simple to be a vegetarian and almost impossible to be a vegan. Most of your basic cooking spices are going to include things like dried krill powder. And if you asked the cook or waiter if there are meat or animal byproducts, they will tell you “no meat”.
I don’t understand your argument. I went vegan at age 51. Before I went vegan I was a meat eater and loved meat. I can honestly say I do not crave meat now.
I think it is just a case of developing your palette. It’s like when some children don’t like veggies but then grow to love them as part of the diet or cutting down on sugar.
And if what you take from me is that we shouldn’t consider how our population affects us and the world then either I seriously fucked up in communicating or your reading comprehension is garbage. The way our population affects us and our world is why people should be vegan in the first place. When we consider our impact seriously and without bias, going vegan is the biggest, easiest thing to do first to reduce our impact
Lions have nutritional requirements that can’t be met without meat or enough generations and pressures to evolve the ability to process what they need from plants.
That is a major difference between big cats and dogs, as dogs are omnivores and could make due without meat.
I wonder if there’s any difference at all between a lion and a human in terms of reasoning. Like does a typical human have the capability to plan outcomes and make decisions based on expectations for the long term?
Evil is a societal definition. You’re seeing the beginning of the definition change to include the suffering of animals. The only way it will take hold permanently is if humans end up more empathetic in the future. The current batch don’t have it in them.
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Carnivores aren’t evil because they don’t have a choice in the matter. They are acting on instinct and do not care for ethics. Humans have a choice and moral compass, yet still create unnecessary mass death for personal gain.
As a hypothetical, if lab-grown meat becomes viable and scalable, thus offering a 1:1 replacement for meat, wouldn’t we be evil if we were to reject it just because it didn’t come from a dead animal? If no, why not? If yes, how dissimilar does the meat replacement have to be before humans stop being evil?
I actually eat meat fairly regularly, I’m just curious what other people think about this.
We do. And yet that is not all we are. Should one aspect of what it means to be human being valued above the others? The elevation of critical thinking faculties to being the measure of a man is a very modern post Renaissance concept, one that is slowly losing traction thankfully
“That is not all we are” is not an excuse for unethical behavior. Recognizing the needless death of trillions of innocent, sentient beings is not a critical thinking exercise. It is something one willingly turns a blind eye to.
Why would you celebrate the loss of critical thinking?
I didn’t say it’s being lost
You celebrate the loss of critical thinking right here in your own words.
The elevation of them being the measure of a man is being lost, not the critical thinking skills themselves.
You know that reading comprehension is an aspect of critical thinking right? So is the capacity to engage in the discussion without attacking the speaker?
I’m aware. Please quote where I attacked you.
I get a choice in the matter and what that means is I can be wrong where the stupids can’t. Great. Fuck you AND your free will.
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Point is we don’t have to, and if you acknowledge this along with the fact that our consumption contributes to animal suffering, what does that make us?
I don’t much care for unhelpful labels like “evil,” but it sure isn’t good. It’s not even consistent.
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Why does the animals’ interest to not be killed not outweigh you and your friends’ desire to end their life and eat their body, instead of plants that give you equal nourishment?
Why is the value of their very life less than the value of your whim?
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This is why I’m glad A.I. will be the ones to venture to the stars.
Wow how it that some people are able to go against the will of their genes (and instincts!!) and forgot forego participating in the Natural Cruelty that is eating other animals! Amazing! Surely we would want to export this incredible gift to as many people as possible, right?
Who said anything about inherently evil? First, evil is a very religiously loaded term, harm or suffering is a better one. And we can absolutely morally judge a behaviour without making sweeping moral judgements about the person or being doing the behaviour.
Edit: spelling
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No animal naturally has B12. They get it from foraging…
lions don’t have tofu and supermarkets
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i hear what you’re saying, but we’re in 2024 now and large-scale veganism is definitely practical
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I’ve been around these arguments enough times to see the discussion inevitably get to this point. We dance around the idea of “is it worth it to go vegan or not?” long enough, until eventually someone concedes that “yes it is better to do, but it’s not practical to ask everyone to do it/you can’t get everyone to go vegan/it won’t solve the problem if we go vegan and do nothing else/etc.”
Convenient that any time an environmental initiative requires even tiny changes to our day to day lives, suddenly we need to look for the solutions vaguely “elsewhere.” I guess let’s ignore the fact that emissions from food alone are enough to push the planet over the 1.5C degree warming threshold for the planet, and that the average US consumer eats an order of magnitude more red meat than could ever be sustainable.
If you truly think that it’s worth doing, either do it, or admit that you selfishly don’t want to. Don’t try and pretend the climate science backs up your opinions though.
As an aside, this is basically my goodbye letter to Lemmy, so so probably not going to follow up on this thread. The platform is so small that people can’t help but creep into communities that show up in the overall feed. Say what you will about Reddit, but at least there, spaces created specifically for in-groups (like a space called “vegancirclejerk”) didn’t constantly get commenters from the wider world knocking on the door and starting flame wars in the comments. Like, can there be no space for vegans to just fuck around and post memes in peace?
Maybe finally I’ll get some peace by logging off and touching some grass. And then eating the grass, bc I’m vegan btw
Thank you for the comment. I heavily resonate with the last part. I don’t come to vegan communities online to be bombarded with non-vegans making the same terrible arguments, I have enough of that in real life. Leaving Lemmy seems like a more attractive option.
@mojo_raisin @toxicbubble Did you knew they supplement farm animals with B12 and other vitamins and stuff?
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@mojo_raisin It’s because of factory farming which is 97%+ of all production. Factory farmed animals don’t have access to a healthy soil where they would normally get their B12 and other nutrients. That means rising animals for mass consumption is totally wrong.
Same goes with humans. People today are so separated from the healthy soil, they lack B12.
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@mojo_raisin B12 is produced by soil bacteria. Wildlife don’t have problem with B12, predator or herbivore.
Yeah but muh ideals
Vegetarian and vegan diets have been around for thousands of years in parts of Asia, well before B12 supplements. Cultures sorted out the nutritional requirements through ingredients, and the lack of B12 in western vegan diets has more to do with common western ingredients than some inherent problem with a plant based diet.
I’m not even vegetarian or vegan, just annoyed with misconceptions about their feasibility.
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That is why I was clear about the diets being around. Diets can exist without the dogma.
Vegetarianism yes… veganism I don’t think that’s really plausible.
I think this may come down to different cultures classifying what they consider to be meat.
For example if you go to Korea, it’s really really simple to be a vegetarian and almost impossible to be a vegan. Most of your basic cooking spices are going to include things like dried krill powder. And if you asked the cook or waiter if there are meat or animal byproducts, they will tell you “no meat”.
I don’t understand your argument. I went vegan at age 51. Before I went vegan I was a meat eater and loved meat. I can honestly say I do not crave meat now.
I think it is just a case of developing your palette. It’s like when some children don’t like veggies but then grow to love them as part of the diet or cutting down on sugar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc8XTLpqxLw
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Yeah, I mean if you look at how carcinogenic red meat is to humans, it’s unlikely we ate all that much of it
but even so, just because we’re adapted for something doesn’t mean we should continue that behavior.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu9w4klc-B4 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34455534 and more sources in the description. Red meat definitely is carcinogenic lmao.
And if what you take from me is that we shouldn’t consider how our population affects us and the world then either I seriously fucked up in communicating or your reading comprehension is garbage. The way our population affects us and our world is why people should be vegan in the first place. When we consider our impact seriously and without bias, going vegan is the biggest, easiest thing to do first to reduce our impact
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Lions have nutritional requirements that can’t be met without meat or enough generations and pressures to evolve the ability to process what they need from plants.
That is a major difference between big cats and dogs, as dogs are omnivores and could make due without meat.
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I wonder if there’s any difference at all between a lion and a human in terms of reasoning. Like does a typical human have the capability to plan outcomes and make decisions based on expectations for the long term?
Evil is a societal definition. You’re seeing the beginning of the definition change to include the suffering of animals. The only way it will take hold permanently is if humans end up more empathetic in the future. The current batch don’t have it in them.
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