[CurrentB]

I went vegan six months ago after being exposed to numbers like this and thinking about it a bit. In particular, imagining extending the empathy I felt for my pets to all these other unseen animals that really aren't much different. I thought I'd try it for a week to see how hard it was. It was so easy that I never looked back. These numbers all could be pretty close to zero and we humans would still thrive just as much as we are now, but causing much less suffering to other beings.

[barbazoo]

Even just being aware of one’s privilege to eat animals or even animal products and the impact on other living beings for our “pleasure”. A little more humility would go a long way in terms of animal welfare.

[MisterTea]

> one’s privilege to eat animals

What privileges us vs a crow, catfish or lion?

[barbazoo]

We don't have to anything for it. Someone artificially inseminates the animal, raises the animal, keeps it in mostly in terrible conditions we would cry about if we saw them, drives them somewhere for slaughter, processes the remains until it looks appetizing for you to just heat up and eat. All for couple of dollars per pound. Unbelievable privilege of not seeing the suffering involved.

Animals go out and kill other animals for food, have to deal with the family and friends of the animal it just killed, compete with other animals for the meat, etc. Much more vulnerable and involved.

[doodlebugging]

But what about raising a crop right up to the point where it's helicoptered its genitals enough to have found a gullible pollinator or sprayed it's pollen widely enough to produce the seed for the next generation and then killing it, thus cutting it down in the prime of its life with no opportunity for that plant's descendants to sprout and grow (especially if they are Monsanto seeds) and reach the point where they too can wag their privates while looking for PILFs (plants ...)?

Everything has to eat something. Humans are omnivorous. We have a choice and some choose to base their diets on plant consumption while others eat a little meat and still others eat mostly meat. It's all okay. The universe is working as intended. Villifying those who choose a different diet than yours seems like a petty exercise by people who need to invent a reason to feel better about themselves.

If you enjoy and love the foods that you eat then you are doing it right. There is no requirement and no need to proselytize about your choices. We have enough other religions who have forgotten the main message to deal with. It will be just as easy for people to tune yours out.

[snapplebobapple]

Thats not true. I work my butt off to be able to afford delicious animals. All the stuff you mention is just gains from trade. That someone can run a profitable animal operation at these prices is amazing not privelege.

[xnx]

Carnivores can't survive/thrive on a vegetarian diet like humans.

[7777332215]

Would you raise your own animals to kill and eat? Animals eat other animals, it's nature.

[hshdhdhj4444]

Animals do a whole bunch of things to other animals we wouldn’t consider acceptable.

Cannibalism, eating your young, rape, etc.

I’m not sure why killing for food is the one place we should choose to define our values and ethics based on what animals in the wild do.

[robcohen]

The problem I have with being vegetarian is that you can't prove that it's actually healthier, because the current state of dietary science is pretty poor.

Even if you could, you would also need to explain all of the evolutionary problems that could come from some humans going vegetarian while others don't.

What if being vegetarian makes you smaller and weaker physically (perhaps the case in some vegetarian countries now). If you had the answer, and it was clear a diet consisting of vegetables causes reduction in physical size, then I have to ask:

Would you want your kids to be shorter and physically weaker than you are?

[mmooss]

'What if' is pointless. What if vegetarianism makes you stronger than eating meat? What if it increases your IQ by 20 points or makes you live 200 years? What if you can code faster drinking rare pygmy tree sap or the blood of certain albino poison toads?

> you can't prove that it's actually healthier, because the current state of dietary science is pretty poor.

Almost every decision in life must be made without proof, but with evidence and judgment. We know a lot about nutrition, and a lot of evidence points toward health benefits in eating more vegetables and less meat. We can also see lots of vegetarians in our communities and they don't seem sickly or shorter, etc. - we also see elite athletes in public who are vegetarians.

> a diet consisting of vegetables

Vegetarianim is much more than vegetables; it's everything but meat - legumes (generally beans), vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts - plus eggs and cheese. Vegans cut out the latter two items.

> What if being vegetarian makes you smaller and weaker physically (perhaps the case in some vegetarian countries now).

Where?

> evolutionary problems that could come from some humans going vegetarian while others don't.

What problems? How does diet affect evolution? We'll lose our hunting muscles over the next 500,000 years? Remember humans haven't changed much biologically in 200,000+ years.

[robcohen]

India — 20-30% vegetarian — 167 cm avg male height

Taiwan — 12-13% vegetarian — 174 cm avg male height

Mexico — 10-19% vegetarian — 170 cm avg male height

Italy — ~10% vegetarian — 174 cm avg male height

Brazil — 8-14% vegetarian — 176 cm avg male height

UK — ~7% vegetarian — 178 cm avg male height

Australia — 5-6% vegetarian — 179 cm avg male height

Switzerland — 5-9% vegetarian — 179 cm avg male height

Austria — 5-9% vegetarian — 179 cm avg male height

Germany — 4-8% vegetarian — 180 cm avg male height

I mean, if you think height doesn't matter for men, I think you may want to think about it.

[mmooss]

We don't need uncited, selective data. It would be relatively easy to directly measure the relationship between vegetarianism and height.

Also, height is determined early in life. Many people become vegetarian in adulthood. Becoming vegetarian at 30 won't affect your height, I'm pretty sure.

[gruez]

>Would you want your kids to be shorter and physically weaker than you are?

As someone who eats meat, that's probably one of the worse arguments against vegetarianism/veganism I've heard. If eating animals is immoral, sure why not? If pillaging your neighbors makes your society better off, do you think a good objection to "maybe we shouldn't pillage our neighbors" is "Would you want your kids to be shorter and physically weaker than you are"?

[robcohen]

The logical entailment is eventually your lineage will be wiped out on some timescale if they cannot compete. I guess this argument in null and void if you believe violence is obsolete.

[CurrentB]

Do you want your kids to have colon cancer or heart disease because there is pretty strong evidence to suggest red meat contributes to these. And there's much stronger evidence for that than there is that suggests that vegetarian kids will be shorter and physically weaker (in fact I don't think there is much good evidence at all suggesting that).

Do you also have a problem with red meat?

[paprikanotfound]

This should be studied. People always come up with the exact same Nonsensical arguments against plant-based diets.

[card_zero]

Conversely, I'm not sure why we shouldn't limit our tender feelings to the individual animals we personally relate to. Values are based on other values, and equality is based on freedom of thought and the value of knowledge. Being kind to animals is about humans really, I think.

[xnx]

Murder and rape are also part of nature, but humans can reflect and consider the effects of their actions in ways other animals can't.

[CurrentB]

Personally that would be even worse for me, though I understand maybe "better" on a societal scale by some metrics. To feed a being every day and care for it, to gain its trust, to appreciate their individuality, then to have them killed when they reach some fraction of its potential lifespan, I just don't want to do that. I'm perfectly happy eating legumes.

[7777332215]

I'm not sure if it would be better on a societal scale in terms of pollution and efficiency, but instead in ethical concerns with how the animals were treated.

What about raising cows or chickens, then consuming their milk and eggs?

[CurrentB]

Presumably you only would acquire female chickens to lay eggs. What happened to the male ones? (I don't recommend googling this).

What do you do with the cow when its milk yield drops after several pregnancies? what do you do with the male calves? Just keep them all as pets?

I think there are situations I could contrive where I'd say yeah its fine ethically to eat these things, but the general case still has victims.

And again, since maybe the first week without them, I truly haven't missed milk or eggs or anything else after eliminating them from my diet. Plant options are pretty good too and there are plenty of plants.

[7777332215]

Use the whole of it. Kill them, eat them, use their bones and hide.

Why is okay to kill a tree to build a home, kill a plant to eat, but not okay to kill an animal to eat?

Is it okay to kill a cockroach or a rat in your home?

Does the biological complexity of the organism make it more or less okay to kill it?

[CurrentB]

> Why is okay to kill a tree to build a home, kill a plant to eat, but not okay to kill an animal to eat? > Does the biological complexity of the organism make it more or less okay to kill it?

The ability to suffer is the distinguishing/relevant factor. We all know what suffering feels like and we know that animals have the capacity to suffer. We don't really know that trees do. I want to reduce the suffering I am responsible for.

> Is it okay to kill a cockroach or a rat in your home?

I probably would get rid of infestations in my home and feel bad about it.

It's not about having a 100% perfect record with not killing animals. It's about striving to minimize animal suffering as much as practicable. You're never going to reduce this to 0 animals. But you can get to 95% better than the average human pretty easily if you want.

[kuerbel]

In dairy farming, calves are usually separated from their mothers shortly after birth so the milk can be used for production. There are a few farms that keep calves with their mothers, but this isn’t something that scales in industrial systems. I worked on a farm for a while, and the day I had to take a newborn calf away from its mother, I became vegan. Farmers often say that cows don’t form a bond after giving birth, but that doesn’t match what I experienced. I have never heard anything as deeply sad as a mother cow calling for her baby.

[doodlebugging]

Wait till you get into the other agricultural practices like raising sheep for wool or selecting your herd bulls.

Sheep get castrated, ears notched and tail docked. Then they get set out to pasture.

A bull is selected to be your herd bull and any cows either get milked as you described or pastured to be mama cows for building a herd. Any bull calves either get sold off to be someone else's herd bulls if the genetics are good enough or they get castrated, notched ears and in at least one herd I have seen, their tails are docked.

As the old ag teacher in high school explained, you castrate them to keep their minds off of the ass and put 'em on the grass.

[mmooss]

There are many good arguments I think, but not this one. Nature is eating your neighbor's children; it's starvation, epidemics, and massive forest fires; it's unrestrained homicide and rape; it's leaving your physically weakened child to die; it's eating the head of your spouse; it's survival of the fittest; ... (you get my point).

The other animals in nature are not my standard of behavior. In a sense, the point of any culture is to exceed nature and by as much as possible.

[paprikanotfound]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

[midtake]

Yes. That is far more harmonious with nature than using machines of industry to enslave animal species and slaughter them on profit-driven schedules.

Don't get me wrong, I eat meat, but I also understand that the grand majority of fellow meat-eaters have never hunted or reared livestock. Instead they are complete soyboys (ironic isn't it) who merely consume the output from the machine. These same beta cucks will open their mouths to screech "but animals eat animals in the wild!" Completely missing how unnatural an industrialized slaughter machine is.

The only reason they are enslaved is that they lack organization and understanding. Had they those two, they could kill us all.

[rmah]

I disagree.

[CurrentB]

With what exactly?

[rmah]

All of it.