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It's a bit more complex than that - the complexity of animals is a sliding scale. I'm not trying to convince you to change your diet, but be aware that even for
by vacri 10y ago
It's a bit more complex than that - the complexity of animals is a sliding scale. I'm not trying to convince you to change your diet, but be aware that even for vegans, animals are killed on an industrial scale for their food (just fewer of them than for an omnivorous diet). Growing vegetables and grains uses all sorts of ways to kill vermin and insects. Is there a difference between killing a vole in the field, and killing a vole to put on your plate, as far as the vole is concerned? Most people would rate insects as easily being worth less than a dog, but vermin like voles or mice are mammals, and it's harder to make a clear distinction there.
It's just not possible to feed the number of humans we have without killing lots of animals, even on a vegan diet, as it requires industrialised agriculture. This being said, there are still arguments for overall minimisation and/or for more humane treatment of 'meat animals'. You will be killing fewer animals with a vegetarian/vegan diet, but there's still 'industrialised slaughter of animals' going on.
Edit: in the occasional case, industrialisation can actually help animals. For example, in the sugar industry, they used to burn off cane fields in order to burn all the vermin to death, so workers would be safe to harvest. These days with modern industrial machines, one guy sitting in a harvester doesn't need to be protected from snakes and similar, so there's no need for burn-off. If you want to minimise your animal harm footprint, investigate where your sugar comes from as well...
- codezero 10y agoyou are totally right. My big gripe is that humans on the whole could give a fuck. What I do ask though is... what makes you think human diet at scale requires by its very nature, a non vegan diet?
- vacri 10y agoI'm not trying to get anyone to change their diet, just point out that animals die in agriculture even when meat is not on the plate. You will still minimise animal harm by engaging in a vegan diet, if that's your moral choice, just not eliminate it. I think the vegan side of the argument loses sight of what primary producers see when they don't acknowledge that animals are killed as a byproduct of agriculture. To a farmer, killing animals in the form of vermin is a part of the job, so it becomes more difficult to see much difference between a mouse and a cow. My personal preference would be for the discussion to be about harm minimisation rather than harm elimination, but I don't really have a strong part in this debate. > what makes you think human diet at scale requires by its very nature, a non vegan diet? I didn't mean a non-vegan diet, I meant that even with a pure vegan diet for everyone in the world, we would still need industrialised agriculture to support that, and that means killing vermin at scale. It would kill fewer animals, but it would still be industrial-scale slaughter.
- codezero 10y agoYou should join wygager and I for coffee/beer or what ever :) Shoot me an email. I'd love to chat in person.
- pravula 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism