[tsimionescu]

This is a silly straw-man.

First of all, most humans in society die relatively peaceful deaths (and this proportion would increase if we supported euthanasia, which I am in favor of in certain cases).

Second of all, humans form powerful attachments to their kin and peers, and the death of a human brings great and lasting sadness to all other humans in their group. This is not something observed with cattle and most other animals (though there are exceptions), except for short periods of time.

Thirdly, there are some admittedly specieist arguments to be made in favor of the value of human cognition as compared to that of a cow or pig or any other animal that currently exists on Earth. At the very least, you could say that every human has the potential of being a great artist or otherwise improving the lot of all current and future humans (and perhaps even cows) in a way that an individual cow does not.

[cubesmarching]

The leading causes of death are diseases, cancers, dementia, road injuries, etc. These are inarguably more "horrifying" deaths than how we could kill people with methods such as those used for euthanasia, which is the point the original comment was making.

If a human has no friends, and their death would not bring great and lasting sadness to other humans, is it ok to murder them?

If a human is mentally or physically incapable of improving the lot of other people, and is in fact a burden on society, is it ok to murder them?

[0-_-0]

Murdering a lonely person or a handicapped person still brings significant distress to other humans.

[cubesmarching]

Murdering animals also brings significant distress to humans. Just not all humans.

[0-_-0]

There are a lot of things that bring distress to a small minority but we don't argue that it should be stopped on a societal level.

[cubesmarching]

70 billion farm animals are the small minority, and 8 billion people are the majority?

Is it ok to cause suffering to humans who are minorities because they are minorities?

[0-_-0]

No, vegans are the minority in the above example.

A minority of people are caused distress by having their children vaccinated because they think vaccines cause autism. Should we stop causing suffering to this minority by stopping all vacciantions? Or is it ok to cause suffering to humans who are minorities because they are minorities?

[marliechiller]

|Second of all, humans form powerful attachments to their kin and peers, and the death of a human brings great and lasting sadness to all other humans in their group. This is not something observed with cattle and most other animals (though there are exceptions), except for short periods of time.

straight up false. cattle mourn death and seperation from their calves very obviously, for days. Heres just a small example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Woulyd9NWFM&list=PLtc3iQTP5E... some cursory googling will support this. Whos to say they dont carry that burden for the rest of their lives? I only show outward emotion for a brief time period after a death, but I certainly have sadness for a long time after and it would be hubris to think something as intelligent as a pig or a cow would be unnaffected enough to justify that for 5 minutes of taste

[cubesmarching]

To those downvoting: do you believe that dogs are able to mourn when their companions die? There are myriad examples of this occurring. If so, do you believe that dogs are the only animal capable of this?