- driving a car 1 mile to school is not ethical: who mined that ore? drilled for that oil?
- buying mass produced clothes is not ethical: who slaved for pennies to make that shirt?
- having a smart phone is unethical: cheap laborers build the components in arrangements they can’t exit
living in the 1st world is a world of hypocrisy. everything we do is possible because we have built on the backs of those less developed and outsource our costs so our living standard is high.
i accept this, do all the things above, and eat meat
agreed. We have enough nihilistic, "all or nothing" thinking. There are almost ALWAYS ways to improve incrementally and the magnification of those improvements by many people cannot be ignored.
I think it's important to keep in mind that people can improve the situations you allude to without extreme measures and/or complete cutoff.
- if you're driving a car 1 mile each way, consider biking. consider biking one or more days a week, and use your car for the days you need to go on longer trips like for errands.
- buy higher quality clothing from reputable dealers that try to balance out externalities. learn how to repair clothing that fails, or pay someone who specializes in it. bonus opportunity to support a local business and a worthwhile trade/specialty.
- don't upgrade your smartphone every year. Apple iPhones can receive software/security updates for ~5 years.
- try cooking or purchasing a vegetarian meal once a week. try a vegetable you've never tried before. try to find a way to prepare a vegetable you traditionally dislike until you find a way that is palatable to you. (edit to add: try growing some vegetables, even just a basil plant or sprouts on your windowsill)
It sounds like your position is "everything in the 1st world has a downside so why bother". It is certainly possible to live in a first world in a more conscious, less impactful way.
Others bear the cost, only if the meat consumption supports the producers of externalities aka factory farms and CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). If the meat you consume comes from small-scale, grass fed, local producers, there are no externalities (or fewer than cultured meat could produce) and thus eating meat can still be ethical.
Most people who choose not to eat meat for the ethical reasons do so based on the foundational belief that killing another conscious animal for food is unethical. "small-scale, grass fed, local producers" do not negate that belief.
If you mean carbon footprint, Beyond Meat appears to be on par with chicken and not much better than pork. Beef and lamb are worse, but I don't think this is the main ethics angle they're on.
- buying mass produced clothes is not ethical: who slaved for pennies to make that shirt?
- having a smart phone is unethical: cheap laborers build the components in arrangements they can’t exit
living in the 1st world is a world of hypocrisy. everything we do is possible because we have built on the backs of those less developed and outsource our costs so our living standard is high.
i accept this, do all the things above, and eat meat