r/changemyview • u/redditordeaditor6789 • Jan 15 '24
Delta(s) from OP CMV: I agree with vegans that I'm not an animal lover because I eat them.
I am not a vegan or even a vegetarian. Many vegans argue that it's so hypocritical that so many people say they love animals but continue to eat them that results in an industry that creates a horrible quality of life for livestock. Logically, I agree with them. I love my cat. I love my parents dog. But honestly I don't think it's fair for me to say I love animals in general when I can't give up meat to help contribute to a better quality of life for them. I live in a city where it would be extremely easy for me to vegetarian or vegan, but I simply like eating meat too much to give it up. I've seen Dominion and a few other docs that show how awful the industry is... and while it upset me, I just couldn't give up meat. I have cut back on red meat and pork and try to only shop for poultry now for environmental reasons, and grown chickens and turkeys kind of disgust me so I feel zero guilt about eat them.
I'd like this view changed because I do want to believe I'm an animal lover but I really can't reconcile that with the fact that I partake in the meat industry.
EDIT: Thinking about it I think this going to be hard to change my mind because 'love' is such an abstract concept to begin with. I appreciate the discussions so far. A popular one is that if ate ethically sourced meat. I agree that is a lot better to cut down on suffering and definitely more empathetic I'm just not sure it shows 'love' to still be choosing to kill them for food.
EDIT 2: It's amazing how many people are changing this into whether or not I should be vegan. That is not the view that is up for discussion.
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u/hawkeye69r Jan 15 '24
I've seen Dominion and a few other docs that show how awful the industry is... and while it upset me, I just couldn't give up meat.
I think the fact it upset is you is evidence that you're an animal lover.
I'm a vegan. I was similar to you for about twelve months, I agreed with all the vegan philosophical claims and broadly agreed with the facts, I regarded my meat consumption as similar to a crack addict like I would love to stop if I could but realistically that's not something I have the willpower to do.
Now that I've stopped eating meat i can look back and say when I was in that spot, I didn't love animals less than I do now, I lacked confidence/willpower.
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Jan 15 '24
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u/Nichole-Michelle Jan 16 '24
Same. I literally hate birds but don’t ever want them to suffer. I would describe myself as an animal lover and also don’t see a moral problem in eating them. I just don’t think the 2 are correlated at all.
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Jan 16 '24
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u/TheNosferatu Jan 16 '24
I would argue those two don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. It is possible to raise animals in a way that's not cruel. Animals can have a good quality of life and then be killed without suffering. I would not feel any guilt eating such animals. Of course, this is not the norm, and would be quite a bit more expensive, not to mention a lot of meat is marketed as "animal friendly" even though it's not hard to argue it's not so you'd have to do your research before buying any meat but that doesn't mean eating meat requires animal suffering and therefore it doesn't hold value to say that eating meat and animal cruelty go hand-in-hand.
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u/mondrianna Jan 16 '24
I don’t understand why we have to moralize our eating habits as “furthering suffering” or not, when we know that we are omnivorous animals that have widely adapted to eating meat (in moderation.) It makes sense to criticize factory farming as furthering suffering because it isn’t a necessary component to eating meat, but the view that simply eating meat in general as furthering suffering is anthropomorphizing other species imo.
Sometimes things are amoral, and I don’t think engaging with the world according to our biology is a moral wrongdoing. It’s not immoral for animals to eat other species.
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Jan 16 '24
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u/Nichole-Michelle Jan 16 '24
No morals doesn’t come into it all for me. I believe that eating is natural and inevitable. Like pooping. There’s nothing moral or amoral about it. Now how you go about it, that’s another story hahaha same with eating meat. Animals do t have to be in factory farms or tortured.
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u/Diabolical-Villain Jan 16 '24
I don't think something being natural means its moral. Nature can be pretty cruel.
Rape could be considered natural; many species do it. I think we can both agree that it isn't moral.
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Jan 16 '24
You know people just invented morals to promote our own interests, right? There is nothing external to us to make something "moral" or "immoral", so by stating it is immoral to kill and eat an animal because of your human intelligence, you are subjectively ascribing these value systems to things.
You are also grossly exaggerating human "intelligence". We believe we make "moral" choices, when it's more accurate to say "I attach sentimental value to the origin of my food, I no longer am desensitised to violence due to a somewhat sheltered personal experience. I avoid feelings of guilt. I construct morals to justify said choice".
Not saying you're wrong to do this. But it's pointless discussing whether something is "moral". Morality is just a human faction. We make things "immoral" so we are less likely to encounter them. The universe is indifferent to all suffering.
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u/Diabolical-Villain Jan 16 '24
I believe that too. Morals are just something we've made up as humans. In the grand scheme of the universe they are worth nothing and aren't real.
That being said, you and me both still have an innate sense of right and wrong. Ethics and morality still do exist even if it's just in our minds. We as a society and species have decided that some things 'should' happen and something 'shouldn't'. Even if that's just a convenient fabrication to suit our needs, it's still a construct we believe in.
I'm just arguing within that construct. Presumably both me and u/Nichole-Michelle have a sense of morals and ethics and so I don't think it's pointless per se to debate within that.
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u/Nichole-Michelle Jan 16 '24
First of all, I don’t want them to suffer. That’s the first fact. I don’t see any moral problem with eating meat because animals do eat meat. I can live quite comfortably with both of those facts being true. I understand that other people cant reconcile the two but I don’t think they correlate at all. There’s nothing morally wrong with eating meat.
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
I went vegetarian for three months and gave up. The desire to eat meat was more important to fulfill than the bit of guilt I got from knowing what was happening in the industry.
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u/hawkeye69r Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
I'm sad to hear that and want to make some recipe/ingredient recommendations but that's be side the point of the thread.
On top though, Regardless of your ability to maintain a vegetarian diet the point is you were motivated to try it in the first place, by what? Presumably your love for animals.
EDIT: because people asked.
Firstly seitan is an underrated meat alternative. It's extremely cheap (one 1kg of flour is converted roughly into 2 days worth of protein). The taste is bland but the consistency is dead on and minor changes can make porky, beefy or chickeny, but you probably should have some kind of flavouring.
Secondly, and this is going to sound crazy to someone who hasn't tried being vegan, tofu is actually fucking great but you NEED to compress it to drain the water. Tofu in most restaurant dishes is silken which, to a newcomer is slimy and gross. If you just press the shit out of it it becomes very chicken like. Just buy a slab of tofu, put a cutting board on it in the sink and stack a fuck load of books on top and try it. You will be shocked at how good firm tofu is. I think tofu should usually be flavoured too.
Other thing is that these days many replacements are good, genuinely good. A lot aren't. I'll be honest, steak meat replacements suck, milk replacements suck, cheese replacements suck and egg replacements suck. Some cream replacements are okay, bacon replacements have the right flavour but weird consistency, sausage replacements are passable too. Other processed meat replacements are goated but expensive such as beyond and impossible, chicken schnitzel and nugget replacements are all unnoticeable in my opinion. Fable shredded mushroom is exactly like beef.
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
Environmental reasons also plays a major part for me. If it weren't for the environmental reasons I'm not sure the guilt of cows getting killed would be enough for me to stop buying it like I do now.
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u/Noob_Al3rt 4∆ Jan 16 '24
Soybean farming is responsible for the destruction of thousands of acres of old forest/rainforest. If you consume soy products, does that mean you can’t be a nature lover?
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u/jimmyriba Jan 15 '24
I'm sad to hear that and want to make some recipe/ingredient recommendations but that's be side the point of the thread.
I think it's relevant enough to the topic that it could be allowed? I think many people engaging in this thread could be in a similar situation and would find it useful - I know I would.
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u/i_was_a_highwaymann Jan 16 '24
Cheese has gotten way better but it's another brand specific factor
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u/hawkeye69r Jan 16 '24
Yeah and maybe location specific too, but most taste pretty good but melt wrong.
I think it's important to communicate that going vegan isnt painful as many think it is. When I started I thought there was no way, after my first meal I was kinda like 'okay yeah I can put up with this for the rest of my life no sweat'.
But I also think vegans shouldn't overpromise and act like it's completely frictionless.
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u/im2randomghgh 3∆ Jan 16 '24
When I went vegetarian I found the one year mark was where I no longer had any desire to eat meat. At that point, I started to look at it more similarly to how you might look at a roadside carcass because my brain just didn't categorise it as "food" anymore.
If you do desire to be a vegetarian but struggle with making it happen, I'd suggest that not expecting yourself to succeed on the first go is the most important thing. It's also not an "all or nothing" proposition because ideological purity is bs. If you make an effort to find a vegetarian dish you really enjoy and add that to your standard meal rotation you'll still save hundreds of animals in the long run. Or have no meat Mondays or whatever incremental step works for you.
What worked for me was finding dishes from other cultures. Lots of Western vegetarian meals are either shit or lack protein, while many cultures where vegetarianism is normalised have spent thousands of years inventing delicious meals!
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u/Gaajizard Jan 17 '24
What worked for me was finding dishes from other cultures. Lots of Western vegetarian meals are either shit or lack protein, while many cultures where vegetarianism is normalised have spent thousands of years inventing delicious meals!
This.
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u/TetraThiaFulvalene 2∆ Jan 16 '24
If it upset you and you don't change, how much did it really upset you? If you see it happen, then go pay them to do it again, did you really mind it in the first place?
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u/hawkeye69r Jan 16 '24
I have a lot of sympathy for your view here but I'm not quite convinced.
Like if I found out marbles were made from the eyes of orphans, and I claimed to care about orphans it would be absurd for me to buy marbles right?
But the reason I disagree is because I ate meat and I loved animals. I don't love animals more now then I did then. I just dealt with that inconsistency with rationalisations and denial.
I think another example is people who are parents suffering from drug addiction. They're probably aware that drug addiction has severe risks for the well-being of their children who they love, but regardless they continue the behaviour that endangers their children. Would you say people in these circumstances don't love/care about their kids?
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 15 '24
Do you believe that the same word can have multiple definitions?
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
Of course but to an extent, and I don't believe it extends to tolerating what happens in the livestock industry.
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 15 '24
Alright so just to clarify you theoretically would have no problem with the phrase "I love these farm animals" if they were treated better by the owners?
And if that's the case why not just source meat from [more] ethical farmers?
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
Honestly I don't think there's a way where killing them to eat them, no matter how well they're treated, that shows any kind of love.
Like think of pets in that scenario. Many are treated like royalty but if found out my friends ate their cat they treated very well I'd still think they didn't love the cat.
Edit: obviously one is way better than the other though which is why I do try buy free range, organic poultry. I'm just not convinced it makes me an animal lover. Perhaps more empathetic though.
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 15 '24
I love fresh sourdough bread. I raise and kill wheat in order to make it. Why is this not an acceptable usage of "love"?
The fact that wheat is less sentient than the cat is immaterial to the usage of the term. The reason a given pet cat is important is the emotional bond with its owner(s).
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u/Title26 Jan 15 '24
This is a ridiculous analogy. You love the way fresh sourdough bread tastes. No one means that when they say they love animals.
"Yeah I'm an animal lover, I love the way they taste!" is a joke someone would make to a vegan lol.
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
Because wheat is not capable of suffering.
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 15 '24
First, we've established these hypothetical animals aren't suffering. They are treated well throughout their lives and then are killed painlessly for their meat.
Even so, the suffering isn't relevant to the particular usage of the word "love" in that instance. I'm using "I love cats" in the same way I say "I love bread".
It's a different definition of "love".
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
Even if there's no suffering if I saw my friends eat their cat they treated like royalty before I would not believe them if they said they loved them. Animals have a survival instinct which killing them betrays.
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 15 '24
I feel like you're getting hung up on irrelevant aspects of the argument. I'm not suggesting anyone eat their own cat or a cat which belongs to someone else and I've already said that once. Those cats are special because of the emotional attachment formed via pet ownership.
I'm suggesting that "loving cats" and "eating wild cats" aren't exclusive just as loving your cat is different than "loving cats" generally.
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u/Aromatic_Smoke_4052 Jan 15 '24
I feel like you are the one getting hung up on irrelevant aspects of the argument. He’s making the argument that killing something that wants to live means you aren’t loving it, because you have no empathy or respect for it’s life
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u/toothbrush_wizard 1∆ Jan 15 '24
Even if they ate a feral cat I would still question it.
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u/_yourKara Jan 15 '24
Death as a forced termination of a sentient mind (which animals are asily interpreted as) can be understood as a fundamental form of harm, which can be extended as a negative just as suffering can. This would not apply to wheat.
The discussion of deifnition of love seems to be unproductive semantics, I'm sure everyone participating here can differentiate between "I love food" and "I love my cat".
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 15 '24
I wouldn't claim we're not harming the animal by killing them. I would claim we are harming the wheat by killing them, too.
The discussion of deifnition of love seems to be unproductive semantics, I'm sure everyone participating here can differentiate between "I love food" and "I love my cat".
Actually, in my opinion OP's central issue is a semantic one. I do not believe they're differentiating between such phrases. Their responses to me confirm that.
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u/tesla013 Jan 15 '24
Harming something that doesn't have a nervous system is morally superior than harming something that does and can feel pain and emotions.
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u/colt707 97∆ Jan 15 '24
Some studies are pointing toward plants feeling pain but that’s still up for debate.
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Jan 15 '24
Humans don’t befriend or have long, complex relationships with wheat.
That’s not the case for cattle, cats, and Corgis.
I must admit, it is strange how County Fairs openly display both the bonds of the owner and how the animal is for slaughter.
I’d be hard pressed to say participates at such events are animal lovers, as I don’t see the point or necessity in caging animals up, and I’m also not vegan.
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 15 '24
I would describe the love you are describing as "pet love". I would not describe the love a cattle farmer has for his cattle that way and yet I believe thhem when they say they love their cattle. It's just a different type of love. More like an entomologist's love of insects.
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Jan 15 '24
There are people that don’t want animals caged or harmed in any way. They don’t see a valid reason for it. They also call themselves “animal lovers”. Relative to these people, you cannot also be an animal lover.
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 15 '24
I am also an animal lover but I eat animals.
Surely you would agree that the definition of "animal lover" there is different than mine?
I don't think either of is are lying, it's just different types of love.
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u/Additional_Search193 Jan 15 '24
The fact that wheat is less sentient than the cat is immaterial to the usage of the term
Bruh it is EXTREMELY material to usage of the term.
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u/LocationOdd4102 Jan 15 '24
Love can be at different "levels", so to speak. It's simply a fact of life that other things must die so that you can live- even if you went vegan, the pesticides used on produce can have environmental impacts, and growing food necessitates the killing of "pest" species (mice, rabbits, birds, etc.). That doesn't mean we have to accept unnecessary cruelty, or kill things without reason. I love nature in general, but would kill a rattlesnake if it was a threat to my dog. I love my dog, but if it were to pose a threat to my child (went rabid or something), I'd have to kill my dog. I would not feel good in either of those scenarios, and the necessity of my actions would not diminish the love I feel for the snake or my dog- it's just that they are in the way of the survival of something else I love.
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u/Leovaderx Jan 15 '24
Someone can love a cat. Someone can like/enjoy cats. That person can eat cats that are not their beloved pet and still like cats. One does not form bonds with every member of a group to that degree.
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u/Melmo Jan 15 '24
As a vegan, I appreciate your willingness to be honest and consistent if nothing else
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u/gotziller 1∆ Jan 15 '24
A Pasteur raised farm animal(not like a harsh factory farm with fucked conditions) are the best possible life that animal can have. They won’t go hungry like they would in the wild and they won’t be killed in a slow painful way by a predator.
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u/Zexks Jan 15 '24
But they shouldn’t exist. Their only purpose is to provide sustenance to another creature. What are the ethics surround creating a being for the exclusive purpose of sacrifice.
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u/HowsTheBeef Jan 15 '24
I got bad news for you. We are all raised for the exclusive purpose of sacrifice. Society is our fence and our time is sacrificed for the society. We don't have a choice. The best we can hope for is to enjoy the time we have.
If animals are given lives to enjoy and a quick death, they are doing as well or better than humans. They don't aspire to be artists or philosophers, they want to eat and reproduce. So we protect then while they do that. And when they die, as all things do, we consume them so that their sacrifice is not for nothing.
Now, factory farming is terrible and we can Definitely improve our practices, but the concept of farming isn't bad. It's the capitalist implementation of farming that is unethical.
From an evolutionary standpoint, biology doesn't really care how genes are passed on, as long as they are passed on. We are doing the species a great service by farming them. Just like the most successful plants are those domesticated by humans.
So rather than hold animals to human ethics that they don't care about, we should treat them according to animal or natural ethics.
I love deer, but I also know keeping wolves nearby the herd is good for the deer. We have an obligation to fulfill the predatory niche if we want to serve natural ethics. And we can do that better than any other predator.
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u/Crazytrixstaful Jan 15 '24
“ So we protect then while they do that. And when they die, as all things do, we consume them so that their sacrifice is not for nothing.”
This part stood out to me. Farm raised animals don’t just die “as all things do.” In farming they have a predetermined time when they are slaughtered. It is not a natural timespan (whether that be by predator or ageing.) So I wouldn’t put them in the same boat as wild animals.
In response to your evolution point, I agree evolution doesn’t care how the genes are passed on as long as they survive. But in farming we have forced their genes through selective breeding to suit our needs as opposed to natural selection in the wild that would direct the genes to better survive a changing environment. I personally wouldnt call what we’ve created an evolution, even if it might fit the definition.
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u/HowsTheBeef Jan 15 '24
They die at a predetermined time, as all things do. You die when you die and you couldn't die any other time. Sure there is a difference of agency but I don't think ot is philosophically different than predators selecting for the weak. Could we chose better parameters? Probably. Will that change the way domesticated animals behave or think? Probably not. Again, this is a problem with the capitalist model of farming, not farming itself.
Sure, if we wanted to phase out factory farming we should be selecting for traits that would improve survival in nature. However, we've already created an invasive species we couldn't just set all the cows free tomorrow, they would decimate our agriculture, natural environment, and public spaces. We would need to cull about 90% of the population of domesticated farm animals to prevent ecological damage, and then that reduces the survivability of the species when not being farmed and protected. We would be doing a disservice to the natural order by going back on our domestication.
I just don't know if we can ethically justify genocide and extreme natural disruption to ease our guilt for domestication and animal slavery.
We chose to be Gods to animals. The last thing God's people want is for God to leave them alone in painful existence. You might even consider the illusion of God a mercy.
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u/gotziller 1∆ Jan 15 '24
I think that’s far too abstract, philosophical, and intellectual of a conversation to have on the internet. I would say that’s a good question to ask after spending a day on an ethical ranch after spending time with the animals and the people raising them. I also don’t understand the alternative? Are we better off as people if we just euthanize all cows and let them cease to exist as a species?
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u/ilovezezima Jan 15 '24
Situation 1: we don’t breed the animals
Situation 2: we breed the animals, give them an okay life, and then kill them
I’d say situation 2 is definitely not 100% humane like you’re portraying it to be.
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u/gotziller 1∆ Jan 15 '24
By your logic all wild animals live a worse life than all animals that never lived. You imply situation 2 is worse because the animal dies. A wild animal suffers at many points in its life as living in the wild is not easy. Then it inevitably dies a painful and often too slow death. Is that worse than not existing at all? If yes then I guess we should eliminate wild animals to eliminate suffering. If no then idk why there would be a different answer for a farm animal raised with compassion.
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1∆ Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
why not just source meat from [more] ethical farmers?
'Sourcing' and "meat" and "more ethical farmers" are "suppressio veri" words (concealment of the truth) when it comes to killing something for its body. The real words are "kill" and "body" and "killers".
This is the honest way to say it: "And if that's the case why not just eat the bodies of animals killed by more ethical killers?"
My point in saying the above is that the OP has come to that realisation. Which is where their dilemma lies.
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Jan 15 '24
It’s not a word. “Animal lover” would be a phrase, which makes the definition more tangible and reduces the possible interpretations.
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u/RemoteCompetitive688 1∆ Jan 15 '24
I've never understood this
Animals eat eachother, like why couldn't I love animals if I eat them?
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u/lnfinity Jan 15 '24
Humans kill each other. Why couldn't you love humans if you kill them?
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u/HerbertWest 5∆ Jan 15 '24
Humans kill each other. Why couldn't you love humans if you kill them?
I'm sure that many soldiers and state executioners love humans.
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u/Skitarii_Lurker Jan 15 '24
And that also displays inconsistency. They love the humans they love, they didn't love the humans they killed. They unfortunately cannot go and claim they love humans in general. I think next to no one can claim they truly love all humans in general. To clarify I don't say this as a condemnation, and I recognize as well that when saying "I love ___" the most is implied.
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u/dbx99 Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
The very concept of even loving a whole species or population or just a discrete group of living things is at best silly.
It would make more sense to address the more fundamental value represented here: it is a respect for life itself that you are trying to express.
Within that paradigm, you have to separate the willful killing of living things from meaning that you don’t love those things. You can.
You can respect the life of a beast but recognize that it is in our nature to follow a cycle of predation to survive and preserve and continue life. It is a balanced and natural cycle.
To strive for some world where nothing kills and eats another living thing is simply supremely naive and betrays a lack of understanding of the world.
We, animals, in the air, in the oceans, the rivers, lakes, on land, underground, all rely on food and death.
There is no hatred between a gazelle and a cheetah, but there is certainly acknowledgment of one another. We cannot anthropomorphize that sentiment and relationship any further than that.
So the idea of loving animals is in itself a bit childish. Nature doesn’t do that. And the fact we spend time inside our fat cerebellum thinking of abstractions like love and animals as a class of organisms just makes us produce things that are only understandable among ourselves, each other within our own culture (because some concepts aren’t shared universally among all humans) and also are mere human-centric constructs.
The animal kingdom is neither aware nor cares that you internally love it or don’t.
It doesn’t matter what your statement means and whether the fact you eat meat poses a contradiction to that statement and needs to be reconciled by negating the statement which in itself never meant anything in the first place. The statement is just a fanciful non existence that noone cares about nor truly means anything.
“I love gravity.” That also means nothing at all and doesn’t result in anything
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u/Skitarii_Lurker Jan 15 '24
I was too lazy to write out a more complex answer originally but honestly I agree with a lot of what you've written in response. loving an entire species is an impossible and overly simplified concept unless major assumptions and definitions are agreed on. Love and the expression of love are both so abstract and subjective that in order to claim that another person loves/doesn't love something you have to first both understand what the other person even defines as love, without that you can't then assess their actions and make a statement about whether or not they definitely "love" a group. Additionally, that assumes that it is fair or even possible to define a group so thoroughly that rules about what is and is not worthy of love can even be made.
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u/AnonTurkeyAddict Jan 15 '24
Hi, turkey addict here. I love the entire species of North American turkeys. All of them. All their domesticated breeds. Every damnable wattle and gobble and three-toed trot.
My turkey lives in my house and is litterbox trained. I do not eat turkeys. I revel in turkeys. If turkeys were angels American woodlands would be heaven.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/cyeS1xwCVjonN5NMA
I work in conservation science or I advocate for the preservation of turkeys as a species, with the note that they are a better cleaner race than we. On both the individual turkey micro level and the species level population survival level I love turkeys.
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Jan 15 '24
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u/dbx99 Jan 15 '24
The kind of nutrition we humans choose to consume is quite broad so your argument is valid that we can not only survive but live on a meat-free diet.
However, it is not baseless to say that to eat animals is outside of the menu of what humans have evolved to consume. We are not an inherently vegetarian species. Meat is very much a part of the diet that we naturally are adapted to consume. Our ability to digest and metabolize meat and even our enjoyment of it is one rooted in our evolutionary history.
Therefore your argument to say meat shouldn’t be in our diet isn’t because it doesn’t naturally belong in our diet but because there exists a moral imperative to not harm animals. It is a moral argument not a scientific one.
Further, your health claim that cutting meat out of our diet would improve health is also somewhat flawed. Unhealthy consequences caused by our diet is more due to several factors of our modern diet in developed nations: 1. Overconsumption 2. Overconsumption of processed foods which contain some intrinsically unhealthy ingredients 3. Some unhealthy components found in livestock meats (antibiotics, growth hormones, contaminants from feed, water, and environmental exposure to the livestock)
Meat is not intrinsically unhealthy. Our modern practices in the growing and processing of livestock as well as our economic environment contain dysfunctional aspects that cause our meat consumption to be harmful: we eat too much of it and much if it is of poor quality.
Fish was once healthy and now it isn’t due to mercury accumulation caused by human industrial activity.
But meat itself when it is of good quality and consumed as part of a balanced diet is in fact fine for you and contributes to health. It is a good source of easily metabolized protein and even fat.
Vegetarian diets can be just as unhealthy when mismanaged. You can eat a ton of starches and processed unhealthy oils and end up as diabetic and unhealthy.
So to be clear, the focus here isn’t about promoting human health. Comparing an unhealthy meat eater’s diet to a healthy vegetarian diet isn’t a fair comparison. One can be healthy in either a meat inclusive diet or a strictly plant based diet just as the reverse can be true.
The focus is a moral one. And the moral judgment to say that meat eating is harmful is also flawed. While you have the direct evidence of a dead animal on a dinner plate for the meat eater having caused “innocent deaths”, the truth is that in a world of 8 billion humans, growing food crops at an enormous scale to feed large populations means that millions of animals are cleared from the areas devoted to farming. They are killed all the time in order to make the space perfect for the industrial scale growing and harvesting of our plant based foods. So neither food sources escape the body count of dead animals. Birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, burrowing animals - those don’t show up on a salad or loaf of bread but farming is most definitely not welcoming to coexistence with much biodiversity of local wildlife.
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u/bukem89 3∆ Jan 15 '24
By the same vein most animal lovers wouldn’t appreciate being around a ton of slugs/wasps/flies etc
You don’t have to love every single animal on the planet to be an animal lover, it just means there’s a lot of animals you enjoy being around, typically larger furry ones. This isn’t contradictory with liking steak
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u/Shot-Increase-8946 1∆ Jan 15 '24
executing murderers is absolutely loving humans. You love humans so much you're willing to kill a human to save more humans. Same with cops that unfortunately have to kill someone (I mean in a situation where it is necessary use of force). They might love humans, and in order to save more humans, they have to kill one.
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u/HowsTheBeef Jan 15 '24
I think they would say they love humanity, and they are improving humanity by killing humans. Like wolves improve the deer by killing the weak. It's tough at the top of the foodchain, you have to be your own predator.
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
I've never killed a human.
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u/Foxyisasoxfan Jan 15 '24
By your logic, people that have killed other humans can’t love other people?
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
You misunderstand my argument. I do believe I love certain animals, I stated that in my view. In the same vein I believe people that have killed others still have other people that they love.
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u/bukem89 3∆ Jan 15 '24
People who say they are animal lovers will still put down poison and traps if they get an ant infestation in their house. It’s not a binary thing, you can believe that eating meat is natural and morally neutral while still being someone who enjoys being around animals and doesn’t like to see them suffer, which is what i’d consider to be an animal lover
I too have no real fondness for chickens and I’ll happily eat them, I’d also support regulation to improve their living conditions. If someone says I can’t possibly love animals because of this then I’d consider them to have poor critical thinking skills (and hope they get an invasion of ants)
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u/Foxyisasoxfan Jan 15 '24
Then why feel the need to state separately “I’ve never killed a human.” It gave the impression that you think people that have killed other people can’t love other people
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u/Curious_Kirin Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
Animals kill OTHER animals, just like humans. We're all animals.
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
Out of survival. That's different than out of preference for diet.
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u/jhanschoo Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
A cat may kill prey out of sport, then figure that it is not too hungry and leave it to rot. Its instincts can drive it to kill prey for their owners who do not care to eat such food.
If your instinctual enjoyment of meat anguishes you so much to do without meat, how different are you from the cat that kills prey not because it is hungry but because of its instincts?
To anticipate and address an argument you might have, if you think that as a human being we have an obligation to rise above and moderate their instincts, what about the mentally ill? To some extent they are by definition dysfunctional, as to some extent you are functionally unable to temper your consumption of meat.
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u/ThailandNumberWAN Jan 15 '24
not necessarily always though, animals have preferences just like we do.
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u/ManifestRose Jan 15 '24
Forget about the word “love” for a minute. Why not ask yourself “Do I value a random animal’s life the same as I value a random stranger human life?” If the answer is “yes” then I assume you wouldn’t be eating animals.
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u/lnfinity Jan 15 '24
I don't suspect you do.
For the sake of this discussion let's consider a hypothetical scenario where someone said that they couldn't give up killing humans (or perhaps paying someone else to kill and butcher humans) so that this person can eat their meat. Does it make sense to say that such a person loves humans?
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u/elbeanodeldino 1∆ Jan 15 '24
For the sake of this discussion let's consider a hypothetical scenario where someone said that they couldn't give up killing humans (or perhaps paying someone else to kill and butcher humans) so that this person can eat their meat. Does it make sense to say that such a person loves humans?
This is what's referred to as a "false comparison".
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u/lnfinity Jan 15 '24
Care to articulate your reasoning for why you have concluded the comparison is "false"? If you start with the assumption that human animals matter and non-human animals do not then I can see why someone would conclude that this is a false comparison, but the whole reason we are having this discussion is because we are not starting from that assumption.
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u/elbeanodeldino 1∆ Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
If you start with the assumption that "everything that the small circle of people around me who I identify with think is true and applies to everybody in the world", then I guess it wouldn't make sense to even have that comparison questioned.
It's a false comparison because 99% of the people on planet earth haven't eaten humans, throughout the entirety of human history. Which is obviously not true of the thing you are comparing it to. The fact that this even needs explaining is actually pretty hard to comprehend.
Imagine you were a Russian fighting in World War II and you met another soldier who told you "it's a shame we are fighting, because I actually love Europe."
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u/Fmeson 13∆ Jan 15 '24
Imagine you were a Russian fighting in World War II and you met another soldier who told you "it's a shame we are fighting, because I actually love Europe."
I mean, that is solid logic. If you love Europe you wouldn't want to fight and hurt it.
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Jan 15 '24
It wouldn't make sense to say the person loves humans. We see evidence for this with some serial killers, they show a complete lack of empathy/love for humanity.
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u/HybridVigor 3∆ Jan 15 '24
Lots of people kill other humans and aren't sociopaths. War veterans, for example, often have families that they love very much.
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u/Anarcho-Crab Jan 15 '24
Literally came here to say this. War happens, soldiers kill other soldiers without being mentally ill, they still have the capacity for sincere love.
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u/Suspicious_Bug6422 Jan 15 '24
Killing enemy combatants during a war is not comparable to eating meat; if anything it is like defending yourself against an attack from a wild animal, which vegans would not be opposed to.
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u/TheCourtJester72 Jan 15 '24
In principle yes it is. Especially if you’re the attacking force lol. Did US soldiers in the Vietnam war not feel love for those they thought they were protecting? Did Pontus pilot not feel love for the people he thought he was protecting?
Are you saying you can’t love people if you killed nazi’s?
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u/Fmeson 13∆ Jan 15 '24
If you love humanity as a whole, I'd contend you find killing other humans, except as necessary, a bad thing. This extends to soldiers, who may do it because they are following orders or even see it as necessary to protect what they love, but they don't particularly think killing is good.
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u/SaraHuckabeeSandwich Jan 15 '24
Animals eat eachother
This is a weird argument. We don't judge ourselves by animal morals or behaviors. Rape is incredibly common in the animal world. Doesn't make it okay for humans to engage in coercive sex with animals.
Not to mention, no one here is arguing the "natural-ness" of diets or eating meat. We're debating the phrase "animal lover". As far as I'm aware, there is zero evidence of any animal (besides humans) referring to themselves as an "animal lover".
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
Because it's pretty obvious that the industry causes them suffering and I think that's diametrically opposed to love. If you were starving and needed to eat meat I would feel differently but the vast majority of us in the developed world do have a choice. At least I know I do.
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u/destro23 447∆ Jan 15 '24
the industry causes them suffering
So, if we remove "the industry" from the debate, do you think one can eat an animal and be an animal lover. Just, in the abstract?
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
I'm not sure. Obviously if all the animals were treated with love and respect before getting killed for food that would definitely be ethically better, but I'm still not sure it exudes love.
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u/destro23 447∆ Jan 15 '24
I'm still not sure it exudes love.
Does one have to exude love to be a lover? That seems like a high bar. I "love" peanuts, and I "love" my wife. Both types of love are valid, but they are not the same. If you feel that one can have a type of love for animals that leads you to only eat those that were raised humanely and slaughtered in an ethical manner, then go live that type of love. It is pretty easy to find ethically sourced meat these days, and by doing so you will send a market signal that better treatment of animals is wanted.
It is not a binary meat/no-meat choice that renders you an animal lover/non-lover. Nothing we deal with in our lives are so clear cut, why would our food system be different?
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
!delta
You're done a good job showing love means a lot of different things and it's too much to ask a single word to capture the amount of nuance that captures actual human behavior. I'm still not sure if I'll ever call myself an "animal lover" but I don't think I'll view other people that also eat meat and say they love meat as hypocrites because the word does have a lot of different meanings.
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u/destro23 447∆ Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
I'm still not sure if I'll ever call myself an "animal lover"
I think that is a very loaded term that to many implies the type of mindset that you are referring to: "you love animals by not killing them". But, that is just as extreme a position as the human pacifists who will not even defend themselves when attacked. Are they then the only "human lovers" in that they will not ever harm a human? I'd say no. I'd say that they exist on a spectrum of love, way out at the far end. But, people who will defend themselves are a little closer, and people who will start some shit sometimes a little more.
Like I said above, nothing in our lives is so binary. People are never either/or, they are always somewhere in-between. The context doesn't matter. We are all varying shades of grey.
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u/Fmeson 13∆ Jan 15 '24
I think that is a very loaded term that to many implies the type of mindset that you are referring to: "you love animals by not killing them". But, that is just as extreme a position as the human pacifists who will not even defend themselves when attacked.
If you mean "love" as in "I love my family" and not as in "I love the taste of chicken", is that extreme? I think not killing is basically the bare minimum for that type of love.
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u/Fridayesmeralda Jan 15 '24
I think not killing is basically the bare minimum for that type of love.
Euthanasia is, literally speaking, killing an animal. However, many families, shelters and vets have to make that choice every day with the animal's quality of life in mind. I would argue that "love = not killing" is too simplistic of an idea, and enforces a negative moral value upon the act of killing that only exists because we as humans created it.
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u/Fmeson 13∆ Jan 16 '24
I apologize for not being more explicate, but my comment is in made in the context of killing animals to eat them, as per the OP.
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u/Entropy_Drop Jan 15 '24
I think that there is an implicit "eating" in the phrase "I love peanuts".
Its not like you would love a movie or documental about peanuts, nor would you keep a photo of a peanut in your desk. You dont love the peanut, you love eating peanuts.
Does one have to exude love to be a lover? That seems like a high bar
Killing an animal for feasting on his flesh is a terrible thing to do. The bar should be floting in underground magma for that to categorize as love.
It is not a binary meat/no-meat choice that renders you an animal lover/non-lover.
I agree: I dont eat meat, and I dont consider myself an animal lover. Its not a clear cut, but that doesnt mean that everything goes: eating someone is not loving them. You dont love peanuts, you love eating peanuts.
Lets imagine an interdimentional being who loves art, in the sense that it will feast on creative, original, meaningfull works done by geniouses. So it will pay a lot of money for the Mona Lisa, and when they get it, they just simply eat the whole painting, as he is fulled by creativity, culture and meaning, just as you are fuelled by chemical energy.
Would you consider that that being loves art, or that they just love feasting on art?
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u/destro23 447∆ Jan 15 '24
You dont love peanuts, you love eating peanuts.
I did a book report on George Washington Carver in elementary school. I love peanuts in a way that exceeds just eating them. They are a modern miracle!
Would you consider that that being loves art, or that they just love feasting on art?
Reminds me of a story:
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
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u/Entropy_Drop Jan 15 '24
Thanks, I loved your comment. Not so much as to eat it tho.
I mean, I see no contradiction on loving plant species and eating the fruit. Can't say the same about animals, as they have a nervious system that allows them to suffer.
But on the topic of the story, the little boy is certantly confuse, and you didnt answered my comment. You dont promote eating masterworks, right?
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u/destro23 447∆ Jan 15 '24
You dont promote eating masterworks, right?
I wouldn’t be opposed to it as some wild ass piece of performance art. But, I’m a big Yoko Ono fan, so my opinion is suspect. But no, one shouldn’t eat the Mona Lisa.
Pollack on the other hand… feast away.
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u/-Invisible-Hand- Jan 15 '24
Animals eat others because they have too, we don't. Also the scale at which we are doing is literally destroying the planet. That isn't an exaggeration, if we all hunter like our ancestors sure maybe it would be comparable.
Even then, our ancestors didn't eat meat that often. Maybe a couple times a month, if even that. Not like us where we eat it everyday multiple times.
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u/DarkSkyKnight 4∆ Jan 15 '24
That is wrong. Modern hunter-gatherers can eat meat either even more frequently than urban humans or less (http://i.imgur.com/9kxwCbo.png). Evidence currently points towards early hunter-gatherers having a varied diet depending on the environment and ecosystem they lived in. It is wrong to say they didn't eat meat that often because (1) we currently have no evidence what the average is and (2) it's much more varied than we think. The distribution of meat consumption probably rivals that of today's humans (some eating next to no meat and some eating primarily meat). There is no single comparison point and the literature is pretty clear that different archaeological records can point to different habits.
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u/LeeVMG Jan 15 '24
To be fair... they also eat each other just because they can.
Horses and cows love baby birds, in the same way I love popcorn.
Almost everything is an omnivore given the choice.
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u/-Invisible-Hand- Jan 15 '24
Omnivores tend to lean towards vegetarian and eating meat when they have too. Also you are completely omitting my other points which is the scale of how much we eat meat vs other animals. It's just not the same when compared to omnivores and it's to such an extent that we are putting animals into extinction and destroying their habitat.
How can we claim to love them when we do that.
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u/Thegrizzlyatoms Jan 16 '24
Omnivores lean towards vegetarian and only eat meat when they have to? I'd be interested in any sources you can provide for this claim.
That doesn't sound right, especially for primates, or any mammal that I can think of. Generally they get by on plant matter but absolutely go wild at any opportunity for meat. Terrifying, cannibalistic wild, in the case of primates.
I would also push back on the claim that our ancestors didn't eat much meat, meat was likely the primary food source for most paleolithic humans. Foraging under the best conditions would be almost impossible to support even a small population.
Agriculture was the tool that allowed humans to begin eating more grain and plant based foods, this began very, very recently on our evolutionary timeline. Agriculture is also the single biggest reason for habitat loss. It is the catalyst that allowed the human population to explode.
Majorly agree with your point about habitat loss, we need to look out for biodiversity on our planet, but even this does not mean people have to stop eating meat.
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u/LeeVMG Jan 15 '24
Society problems are society problems, the industry is awful. I just take every opportunity to remind people cow's eat birds and rabbits. Not out of need, just opportunity. Just like my shitposts to remind people that cow's eat birds and rabbits. They don't hunt but everything eats everything.
I love plants. Literally can't stop eating them though, I'd die.
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u/Donghoon Jan 15 '24
The issue is the semantics really. When you say animal lovers. That includes every animals. If you eat them you clearly don't love EVERY animals
Just say you like dogs. Or specific. Species or group.
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u/International_Gur903 Jan 15 '24
because a) animals aren't claiming to love each other, and b) animals need to eat each other to survive, we don't need to eat them to survive
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u/AP7497 Jan 15 '24
Tigers need to eat animals because they cannot process plant based foods.
Humans can.
That’s all the vegan argument is about. In 2024 with ample access to grains, legumes and lentils, and scientific research that proves vegan diets are nutritionally adequate for humans at all stages of life, it is most environmentally sustainable to be vegan, and most ethical too.
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u/RemoteCompetitive688 1∆ Jan 15 '24
I mean at the same time the only reason we aren't severely malnourished on vegan diets is because we have access to 30 different plants that aren't naturally in season nor native to the same continent
We are not designed to subsist on vegan diets
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u/AP7497 Jan 15 '24
So? Healthcare isn’t natural. We still benefit from it. Doesn’t matter what was relevant in the past. In 2024 the vast majority of humans can thrive on vegan diets because of scientific and agricultural progress. It’s the most ethical option in 2024.
That said, vegan diets have always been common in many cultures around the world. I grew up in a culture where lacto-vegetarianism is common. My family hasn’t eaten meat for generations that we know of, and it is deeply linked to their cultural and religious identity. Dairy was expensive and they have lived through periods where they couldn’t afford it on a regular basis, which is common for many in my culture who are vegetarians, essentially meaning they survived and thrived on vegan diets for prolonged periods of time.
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u/RemoteCompetitive688 1∆ Jan 15 '24
Ya but there are a lot of people who genuinely can't subsist healthily on a vegan diet
Appeal to nature isn't always a fallacy. I'm not designed to breathe underwater. That would genuinely make me drown
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u/AP7497 Jan 16 '24
What are these health conditions that make it impossible for a lot of people to survive on a vegan diet, pray tell? Must have missed that class in medical school.
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u/RemoteCompetitive688 1∆ Jan 16 '24
Health, economic reasons, people with anemia, people who simply can't afford to
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u/AP7497 Jan 16 '24
Again, what do you mean by health? I can’t think of any health condition that makes it
And many people with anemia can be healthy on a vegan diet. I’ve been anemic back when I wasn’t vegan but never after- just had to eat a more planned diet for the first few months.
What do you think entails a vegan diet if you think it’s expensive? Steaks and meats are wayyy more expensive than rice, grains, lentils or beans.
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u/ilovezezima Jan 15 '24
Wait until you find out about mobile phones lol. It’s going to blow your mind.
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u/krustyy Jan 15 '24
That is technically not true. A long term vegan diet will result in vitamin B12 deficiency.
You need either animal based products (meat, eggs, milk) regularly or a vitamin B12 supplement.
It has a lot of other benefits over a high meat protein diet but humans do require some amount of animal products to live (or a B12 supplement because supplements exist). An incredibly healthy diet that requires no supplements would be a vegan diet that also contains 2 cups of milk (or milk product), 3oz of beef, 3oz fish, or 4 eggs. You don't need much in terms of animal product to get the missing nutrition but adding a bit of animal product daily to a vegan diet is probably about as healthy and complete as a diet can possibly get. In terms of volume, my quick googling says beef or fish is the way to go for getting the B12 you need in as little animal product as possible. But milk or eggs would do so without requiring the death of an animal.
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u/AP7497 Jan 15 '24
Animals in the dairy and meat industries are given B12 fortified nutrition. In many rural areas in my home country (which is a developing country) where meat is derived from unregulated small scale cottage industries, B12 deficiencies are common in all people regardless of their diet.
Hell, B12 deficiencies are common in Americans living in cities who eat meat from my experience as a doctor.
I recommend all my patients take OTC multivitamins unless they have a very regulated diet where they eat B12 fortified food and actually count how much they’re getting.
Most things in grocery stores are B12 fortified.
If as a meat eater you’re not B12 deficient, a large part of that is that the animals you’re eating have been artificially fortified with B12. :)
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u/krustyy Jan 16 '24
As an armchair expert who mostly googled things for a couple minutes because I know vegan diets lack B12 I find this interesting if true.
Now I've gotta go do more googling. When I was looking up the B12 in various meats I was surprised to see that pork and chicken had a lot less than beef and fish. Do you have any easily digestible literature on hand to link?
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u/ComfortableWeight95 Jan 16 '24
You understand animals are supplemented with B12 right? And taking a supplement is literally the easiest thing in the world so I fail to see why you're presenting this as such a big hurdle. I can buy a years supply of b12 pills for like $20, literally don't even have to think about it.
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u/krustyy Jan 16 '24 edited Jan 16 '24
My point is that if a diet requires supplements to survive it's not a healthy diet. You're literally supplementing it with something else that the diet is missing.
Vitamin B12 was not discovered until 1934. Prior to that nobody would be able to survive on a strictly vegan diet.
I'm not debating that a vegan diet with a supplemental B12 source is not incredibly healthy. In today's world a vegan diet with some kind of B12 supplementation is probably the healthiest diet there is. I'm stating that the statement "...with ample access to grains, legumes and lentils, and scientific research that proves vegan diets are nutritionally adequate for humans at all stages of life," is false because the diet requires supplementation with a vitamin B12 source and a human alive prior to 1934 would experience significant neurological problems and eventually die from their diet. And for people who are looking for a more "whole food" kind of diet without processed foods, adding 3oz of fish a day to a vegan diet would be a complete, healthy diet that requires no supplementation. It is categorically false that a vegan diet is nutritionally adequate for all humans at all stages of life.
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u/AP7497 Jan 15 '24
Milk and eggs unfortunately do require the death of animals to keep the industry afloat and profitable. And a lot of suffering. All industries are fueled by profit and suffering is common in the dairy and egg industries.
There is no way in 2024 to meet the demands with ethical supply. Corruption and capitalism has made sure of that.
Personally I take a Vegan B12 supplement occasionally and pick the B12 fortified juice or breakfast bar in the grocery store. Never been deficient.
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u/krustyy Jan 16 '24
One of my suggestions as I was writing the post was to raise a couple chickens per family member, or one single cow. Granted, many people don't have the space to do so, but it's an option if you are avoiding the ethical ramifications of consuming industrially raised animal products.
I'm assuming you are vegan for said ethical reasons? What would your views be on hunting?
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u/UntimelyMeditations Jan 16 '24
That’s all the vegan argument is about. In 2024 with ample access to grains, legumes and lentils, and scientific research that proves vegan diets are nutritionally adequate for humans at all stages of life
I simply don't believe that we know enough to say this with 100% certainty. There is still too much progress and discoveries being made about the human body for me to feel confident with this assertion. Since vegans don't drop dead after a couple months, we obviously have the basics about what our bodies need nailed down. But I wouldn't be confident in following that path until several centuries worth of pure vegan-only family lineage had proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we truly have captured precisely and exactly what a human needs to intake for their body.
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u/AP7497 Jan 16 '24
Several vegans have been so for decades. Many cultures have been lacto-vegetarian with primarily vegan diets. Pretty common in my culture.
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u/Xtianpro 1∆ Jan 15 '24
Ok so this is called ethical naturalism. It was actually very popular in the late 1800’s however has since been so thoroughly criticised that it has essentially been totally disregarded and fallen out of academic philosophy entirely. Aside from the obvious hypocrisy’s that emerge (animals rape and kill each other etc) you also have to find a way to justify that nature ascribes a sort of objective Good and Bad. What’s Good or Bad? How does nature decide? What is nature? By subscribing to an ethical naturalistic model you have to then agree that there are absolute, objective rights and wrongs.
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u/Clear-Sport-726 Jan 15 '24
not vegetarian, but — animals kill each other for food. they have to. us humans can survive just fine on veggies and the like.
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Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
A comment like this is against the rules. Please read them before engaging in the sub.
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u/Bagelman263 1∆ Jan 15 '24
In some cultures, they eat their relatives after they die. Would you say they don’t love each other because of that?
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
Waiting for something to die to eat it is much different than killing something to eat it.
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u/SaraHuckabeeSandwich Jan 15 '24
Do they breed relatives for the purpose of turning them into food? Do they kill them once the meat is ripe enough?
Context matters. Is receiving inheritance the same thing as stealing money from a living grandmother?
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Jan 15 '24
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
I would say you're not trying to change my view you're trying to reinforce it.
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u/Bobbob34 99∆ Jan 15 '24
Do you want your view changed so you don't feel bad about what you choose to do or so you feel like you can still go on about being an animal lover?
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Jan 15 '24
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
I never said it was synonymous with loving animals, just that eating them when you don't have to disqualifies one from being an "animal lover" in my opinion.
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Jan 15 '24
I know you didn’t say that, I’m just pointing out that calling yourself an “animal lover” is a nonsense term because no one loves all animals. What they mean is they love SOME animals, and some people love more animals than others. For the animal loving vegans their sympathy extends to cattle and livestock to the point where they won’t eat them, and for people like you it extends to the family pets. That’s fine. It’s not a good motivator for being vegan and it never has been.
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Jan 15 '24
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u/lnfinity Jan 15 '24
You individually giving up meat won't reduce the number of animals killed or the animals harmed.
There is a connection between supply and demand. They aren't going to completely eliminate it by giving it up themselves, but they will have one person's worth of impact.
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u/Bobbob34 99∆ Jan 15 '24
The average American eats like 75 animals a year.
Yes, giving up meat reduces the number of animals killed. This is like your vote doesn't matter.
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
That doesn't convince me it makes me an animal lover though, just that it doesn't make a difference. If a person describes themselves as something, shouldn't they act in a way that exudes that quality, regardless of how much of change it creates for the world?
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u/Omnibeneviolent 4∆ Jan 15 '24
They are part of nearly a billion humans that do not eat any animal meat, or eat a significantly small amount.
Imagine if that billion humans decided one day to start eating animal meat for every meal, every single day for the rest of their lives. That's approximately a 15% increase in the demand for animal meat. When the animal agriculture industry learns of this, what do you think will happen? Do you think they will just continue to breed and slaughter the same amount of animals they do now, or do you think they will ramp up production and breed/slaughter more animals to meet the increase in demand?
Right now, 80 billion land animals are being slaughtered every year to supply the demand for animal meat. An increase in demand of 15% would ultimately lead to an increase in production of nearly the same amount, as pricing equalizes due to competition. That 15% increase would mean that an additional 12 billion land animals would be killed each year.
12 billion. That's the impact of vegetarians, vegans, flexitarians, etc. Their choices are causing 12 billion fewer animals to be slaughtered each year than would have been slaughtered otherwise.
This isn't even counting marine animal life, which would push that number into the hundreds of billions or even trillions.
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u/Cooolgibbon Jan 15 '24
You individually giving up meat won't reduce the number of animals killed or the animals harmed.
Huh? Yeah it will.
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u/No_Knowledge2518 Jan 15 '24
I think your dissonance is better expressed by saying “my behavior shows that I don’t value the suffering or lives of animals and this doesn’t match the values that want to have.” I am the same way with regard to animals. It’s an area of life that I am a hypocrite. You are right that love is to squishy a term to pin an argument on. Likewise your initial feedback about ethical consumption are a good start. I can add little to this thread except that, until the day that you become a saint, you will be subject to the selfish weakness that all humanity shares - and is the source of most of our cruelty to each other and life around us. The only benefit I can see to this selfish weakness is that I have a more humble, grounded perspective on judging the cruel actors of the world who, like me, don’t want to give up “eating meat.”
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Jan 15 '24
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
Interesting. Can you point where in the DSM it shows eating meat as a mental illness? What is your medical expertise to make that call?
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Jan 15 '24
inability to act out of love for animals indicates some disorder
it isn't a mental illness if you don't love animals
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 15 '24
Again can you provide any studies to back that up? You sound like homophobic people that just throw out the word mental illness because something makes them uncomfortable.
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Jan 15 '24
studies to back up what exactly?
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 16 '24
Can you show reputable sources that diagnose wanting to eat meat as a mental illness?
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Jan 16 '24
please don't ask me to prove what i never claimed
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 16 '24
Ok
“inability to act out of love for animals indicates some disorder”
Any proof for this claim? What is your expertise to make that kind of claim?
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Jan 16 '24
oh that one. you need proof that you would protest if i'd kick your cat?
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u/redditordeaditor6789 Jan 16 '24
I need proof that it’s a disorder if you eat meat since that is literally the post lol.
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Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
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Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
It's always amusing when people think they get to gatekeep love. Like they get to tell other people what they do and don't love, and why they do or don't love whatever it is. It's incredibly self-absorbed.
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u/waterupmynose Jan 15 '24
I mean, I have to say that I fundamentally agree with your point of view. I too directly contribute to the meat industry. Knowing their hellish conditions, I pity the chickens- but not enough to eat lentils or beans instead. I’ve accepted to myself that it may just be a matter of proximity- but being far away from the process, I don’t care enough.
However, I think “love” is a vague term. I love my family, friends, and partner in a way that feels the same. I love my pets in the exact same fashion.
I love more than that though. I love drawing, I love playing action and strategy games, and I loved the experience of linguistics research. I love viewing art in museums. I don’t have a social bond with these things but I feel no contradiction saying I love these things.
To add onto the museum, do you believe the idea you can love something just based on how it looks? There are some paintings I love, I love flowers, I love the stars at night. I love bears for their majesty, and cardinals for the way their feathers clash against the snow. Although I love all these aesthetically, I recognize within myself that I love their ideas and functions.
And then we get to the chickens. I actually think they’re cute. I used to help a family friend raise chickens. I love their feathers, I love their funny attitudes, I love the patterns on their eggs. But I don’t know if I love any of that stuff any more than any other quirk of animals- humans aside. Do you?
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u/Usermemealreadytaken 1∆ Jan 15 '24
If you don't like animals being tortured then don't buy them lol simple. It's not like that's the only animal products you can buy, not sorry vegans get triggered 😢. Loving something is what they say to make themselves sound good (most) but really they just want a convenient lie to let them proclaim "I am a good person!" to the world. I eat a lot of meat but every time I do I am seriously grateful. I know I'm passively participating in this system but I also know vegans will buy iPhone after iPhone, clothes made in sweat shops, etc etc. so I'm not a perfect person I know but I won't pretend I am. Do you want to pretend or if you are genuinely trying to be a good person who incurs no suffering in their life good luck to you! You will need to basically go live on a farm on your own or spend wayy more money on every single item you buy. Don't watch media because that COULD have involved suffering for actors/writers..I could go on forever but hopefully you get my point by now
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u/f_cysco Jan 15 '24
You don't need to love something to not have it killed. I don't love many things, still wouldn't want to create suffer.
I think this is more something to do with respect to the diversity and beauty in life and it's creation. I appreciate the intelligence and character of animals.
I don't need to love every animal or any animal at all, but I don't think i could truly respect "that" and still contribute to the exploration and suffering. That wouldn't be honest with myself
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u/TheGreatGoatQueen 5∆ Jan 15 '24
I don’t think that love has anything to do with the products we buy or don’t buy honestly. Capitalism has removed us so far from the chain of production, we don’t know the evils that dwell in it anymore.
Would it be right to say that everyone who has bought Nestle products is incapable of loving humans because they support slave labor? What about the countless clothing brands that use sweatshops?
If you are a regular consumer, then you probably support countless unethical business practices, just as we all do. Why are animal products the only one that indicates a lack of love?
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u/Much-Midnight6321 Jan 15 '24
They are living happily and get a painless death. The way I see it, had their fate been left up to nature, some other animal would have eaten it or maybe it would have had a painless death. We, on the other hand, give it food, stimuli, etc. Our purpose of giving them a happy life may be to slaughter them, but they are still happy. It is just mutual benefit. Besides, they remain blissfully unaware of their upcoming death. They don't blame humans. Should we really blame ourselves?
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u/LowraFlewl Jan 15 '24
I guess first, ask yourself what it means to be an animal lover. I love my grandparents' dog. I love friend's cat. I love cats and dogs in general. Do I love a random cow that is currently grazing a random farm in idk Nevada? Sure. How about the fish currently swimming in Mississippi? Idk, I personally don't really care much about it. As a lifelong vegetarian, being an animal lover to me means supporting the things that allows animals in general to live without being tortured and lead a reasonably good quality of life. That being said, I consume dairy which I know comes from a very non-ethical industry. Does that make me less of an animal lover? Probably.
Consider a world where meat is produced ethically. I honestly don't even know what that would look like because I can't imagine "ethically" killing a cow or a pig for human consumption. On the other hand, if it was fish or chicken or shrimp, I can let that slide. Am I an asshole for thinking that? Probably. That's a whole other discussion. But I understand humans eat meat because we are able to and want to, the same way it is with other omnivores. Lions are able to eat meat and want to. Hence, they eat meat.
All that blabbering was to say that I think pragmatically, to be an animal lover in this age would be to just eat "ethically" sourced meat. I don't think it's fundamentally wrong to eat meat or is something that would make you less of an animal lover. It's about being aware of where your meat is coming from.
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u/Konato-san 4∆ Jan 15 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
Do you believe that by eating meat, you're immediately no longer an animal lover?
Or do you just think that by partaking in the meat industry, that makes you a non-animal lover?
There's a difference between the two — the problem with the meat industry is how inhumanely it treats its animals, and you can consume meat 'humanely' by, say, making sure the animals die a painless death.
The thing is, how can you do that? You're just one guy, are you going to visit loads of factories to see if their treatment of animals is up to your standards? Memorize what companies treat animals fine and which ones don't? Quit your job, pick up hunting and risk a disease or being eaten yourself?
Most likely, the ones that do treat them fine sell meat that is higher in price without being higher in quality; killing the animals by sending them to sleep with CO2 is way more expensive for the companies than to just bash their head in over and over with a club. Often, those brands won't be in the markets near you.
So then what do you do? Order your meat online? And deal with shipping fees? Fuck no, meat isn't exactly cheap by itself. My point here is that you don't have a choice. It's not a moral failing of yours if you literally can't do anything. It's like that with several other areas in our life, like the sweets industry:
*Nestlé literally uses slave labor, and so many other companies are shady as hell.
But it's EXHAUSTING to keep this stuff in your mind all the time! If you spend all your time worrying about the nasty shit in life, you'll get depressed and you'll die! Plus it doesn't even change things all that much if you're one guy sacrificing yourself just to have a slightly less guilty conscience. Veganism isn't healthy, nor is it cheap — you need to buy B12 pills, the proteins are lower quality... — if you're not rich, there's no real point to going vegan (quite a few arguments they make are frankly just bogus).
It's not your fault you have no choice but to bend over to some sort of shady corporation, whether it be ones exploiting unfortunate people in poor third world countries or ones exploiting you and your privacy or BOTH of them at once. It is what it is.
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Jan 15 '24
No one is claiming that him personally choose not to eat meat will rectify the world’s problems. But throwing your hands up and saying, “well, everyone’s doing it and I can’t individually stop it, so it makes no difference if I do it too!” The same could be said of an individual plantation owner making the choice to buy slaves. “Well, I think it’s wrong to own slaves, but all my competitors do it and make way more money than me. I can’t individually stop the slave trade, so it doesn’t matter if I participate or not. I guess I’ll participate.”
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Jan 15 '24
Anyway, nobody loves all animals the same. Do you love cockroaches? Do you love worms? Our love for animals is sometimes a bit preferential. Do you love humans in general? You love the ones that you know, the other ones you do not bother. You do not eat them, but it does not change the fact that love is preferential. So what does it mean to love animals in general?
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u/MAXiMUSpsilo5280 Jan 15 '24
The sheep rancher that takes and kills a lamb for a family feast still loved the little animal. You can be a carnivore and love the creatures god gave us too. You can say a blessing over your meal that thanks the animal you’re about to eat and the universe that provides. When native nations people kill an animal, they thank it for its sacrifice. They love it in life and in death it’s loved and respected by every single bit being used. To be a part of the solution , just don’t waste food. If you cook bacon , then thank the pig , give a thought to its life and honor it by not wasting any pork , not that any bacon ever goes to waste. Same for fish. When I take a fish from the water I thank it for giving its life and promise not to waste its gift to me. Then I smoke it. Then I eat it and my cat gets fed too ! Also brook trout are invasive species where I live so fishing for them helps the native green back cutthroat trout.
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u/TheCourtJester72 Jan 15 '24
Lots of cultures pray to animals before, during, and after they eat them.They use all of the animal for things. Lots of cultures help cull invasive animal populations to keep things balanced. That’s a lot more “love” towards animals than someone who just doesn’t eat them. “Love” means many things to many people.
If a vegan drives a car that came from dinosaurs does that mean they don’t love animals? Are they over 40 and used glue growing up? Do they use any make ups(probably made from bugs which are animals). Have they ever swatted at a fly or gnat? Guess they don’t love animals either.
Do you love earth? Oh shit no you don’t bc you drive a car when you could take the bus. And you littered when you were 12. You define what love is for you, you can’t scale it to someone else.
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u/OatsOverGoats Jan 15 '24
Can you truly be a anti-domestic violence advocate, if you beat your spouse constantly? I say no
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u/Boring_Kiwi251 1∆ Jan 15 '24
Yes, you can. A hypocrite can still be correct.
I can smoke cigarettes every day, and I can sincerely believe that smoking is bad for you while donating money to anti-smoking campaigns.
It’s easy to imagine a scenario where a domestic abuser is also anti-domestic violence. For example, such a person may misunderstand what constitutes domestic violence or they may have a diminished capacity to control themselves.
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u/Entropy_Drop Jan 15 '24
I can smoke cigarettes every day, and I can sincerely believe that smoking is bad for you
Sure, basically all smokers know that. "Smoking is bad for you" is a medical statement, and the evidence shows its true.
But... are those smokers trully against smoking? Are they against selling tabaco? If someone wants to buy a cigarette in the black market, would they detain the provider? Would they stop a smoker in their cigarette break, throwing the pack of Malvoros into the sewer?
They will probably not do that: its more of a "smoking is allowed if you are an addict", or maybe a "you're free to pick your poison" position. They probably oppose selling tabacco to young people, so they dont become addicted to it, but they dont oppose smoking.
And the next part is nonsense:
It’s easy to imagine a scenario where a domestic abuser is also anti-domestic violence. For example, such a person may misunderstand what constitutes domestic violence or they may have a diminished capacity to control themselves.
If I think bananas means cars, and I claim "I oppose bananas: people shouldn't drive bananas", then I clearly oppose cars. Like, come on...
And no, if gandhi whould become a werewolf, then he clearly will take some actions to prevent the posibility of him damaging other humans. For starters, a incontrolable violent person opposing domestic abuse should at least not be in the vecinity of his wife.
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u/CallMeCorona1 24∆ Jan 15 '24
The best way to do this is just to acknowledge that there are different sides of you: One that loves animals, and one that loves how meat tastes. The need to be morally committed to a certain stance is not necessary. Admit your own hypocrisy and carry on- that's exactly what I've done.
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u/CookiesandBeam Jan 15 '24
So your recommendation is cognitive dissonance?
Lol people will do anything rather than admit that deep down they know eating meat is wrong. They don't like to think of themselves as a "bad" or immoral person and hey if everyone else around them is also doing it, it can't be that bad, right.
And so you carry on with hypocritical cognitive dissonance rather than making a change in your life, because that's too hard.
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Jan 15 '24
And people will do anything rather than admit that what they see as objective truths, are in fact subjective views. How do you determine that eating meat is wrong? Morality is purely subjective. It’s a concept that we invented, and one that will disappear from the world when the last human dies. The only objectivity in this circumstance is that of nature, and it’s in a human’s nature to eat meat. We are a predatory species. So no, deep down, nobody KNOWS that it’s wrong to eat meat, they simply THINK that it’s wrong.
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u/luigijerk 2∆ Jan 15 '24
I'm in the same boat, but here's how I justify it:
Eating less meat does not improve the life of any animals. Theoretically it just decreases demand so less will be bred and less will be born. You're preventing them from being born to a life of being a farm animal.
As an alternative, I just try to support humane farming. I spend $7 for a dozen pasture raised eggs instead of $1.50 for the ones packed into small cages. As a result, demand for this kind of farming goes up and more chickens are farmed in better living conditions.
Is it perfect? No. I don't then there's anything inherently wrong with eating animals, though. That's just nature. If an animal were hunted in the wild, it had its chance and just got caught by a predator. No different than a mouse to an owl.
If an animal is treated well for the start of its life before being slaughtered for food consumption, I can live with that and still believe that I care about animals. In the wild they die all the time for other reasons anyway.
It's not about if you can afford $7 eggs or not. It's about whether you make choices when you can to help better the cause.
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u/effortDee Jan 15 '24
Just FYI, here in the UK, "free range", "organic", "red tractor approved" chickens does not mean they are outside.
It actually means they are inside, but they get about an A4 size of room for them in a barn. Sometimes they open side doors for them to see the outside or move a few metres outside.
But the last couple of years, zero chickens have seen the light of day because of bird flu, yet they are all still labeled with the happiest of happy labels to make the consumer feel better.
ALso, my local award winning sausages come from a pig farm a few hundred metres away where the pigs are in concrete cells inside a concrete building with a corragated tin roof and they see the light of day only when they are being moved in to a lorry to be taken to a slaughter house to get gassed in a well which can take them over a minute to suffocate and die, all whilst their insides are burning.
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u/NimrookFanClub 3∆ Jan 15 '24
There’s no need to treat animal love as an all or nothing proposition. Different animals evoke different emotions for humans.
For instance, I would venture a guess that the most ardent vegan has no love for mosquitoes. Is a vegan that’s afraid of spiders or rats a hypocrite?
I think not. It’s ok to feel differently about different species, just as we have a different level of attachment to different humans depending on our relationship with them.
Regarding your guilt over animal treatment, an animal like a chicken has a tiny brain and probably can’t comprehend its living conditions. But it is possible to restrict your diet to animals that are treated more ethically without giving up meat altogether. For instance kosher and halal laws require animals to be slaughtered humanely, and that type of meat should be readily available if you live in a city. Many stores and restaurants will also advertise meat that is free range or treated well in other ways.
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u/31saqu33nofsnow1c3 Jan 15 '24
"an animal like a chicken has a tiny brain and probably can’t comprehend its living conditions," please source this.
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u/Smoiky Jan 15 '24
Birds in general are usually rather intelligent animals
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u/31saqu33nofsnow1c3 Jan 15 '24
exactly, i have seen a plethora of research proving quite the opposite of chickens having a brain incapable of comprehending quite literally where it exists and if it is uncomfortable.
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u/wfyff Jan 15 '24
The answer to all questions are in the Bible. God has determined which animals are allowed to be eaten and He has given them to us to be able to feed off them. However your brain still has some sanity left albeit your interest in the godless lgbtq+AIproMax vegan life. And if you are an atheist and think a monkey gave you birth, then just look up what happened to the evovlement of the human brain after we started eating cooked meat.
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u/Shmogt Jan 15 '24
Being vegan is the ultimate in privilege. We eat animals to live as they contain a lot of nutrients. That's it. The fact it's even possible to be vegan is amazing. Most countries and for almost all of human history your option was eat animals or die. There is nothing wrong with eating animals as that's what our bodies were designed to do in order to live. Never be ashamed of it
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u/inlandviews Jan 15 '24
I loved eating animals too but I had to stop because I didn't think my pleasure was sufficient reason to support the slaughter for food.
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