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Thank you for calling me out on this (admitted) bit of bullshit in me. ;) I guess I am comfortable with my cognitive dissonance in this area. FOR NOW. (But se

Thank you for calling me out on this (admitted) bit of bullshit in me. ;) I guess I am comfortable with my cognitive dissonance in this area. FOR NOW. (But seemingly no other areas. I memorized just about all the informal fallacies mostly so I can Correct People's Bad Thinking On The Internet, sigh...) I'm also waiting for companies like https://impossiblefoods.com/ https://impossiblefoods.com/ to do their thing. I tried their impossible burger, and it was amazingly indistinguishable from the real thing. If they come up with impossible bacon and impossible chicken, I'd definitely be able to pull off vegetarianism or pescatarianism. In the meantime, I unfortunately love my chicken and eggs, milk, cheese, ice cream (all in moderation). Also, although I do eat eggs, I check this site to make sure they're ethically obtained: https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/eggs/ https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/eggs/ And I ONLY buy eggs from the highly-ranked producers. I pay extra for this, of course. Also I think fish/clams/oysters/shellfish are sort of the exception for most people, all signs point to them being only dimly conscious with extremely tiny brains. Given their nutritional value, it's arguably ethical to kill them for food (but not unsustainably to the point of drastic population decrease, which I think we're currently doing with bluefin tuna...) This doesn't include octopi and whales/dolphins and other obviously-intelligent creatures, of course. What is your position on humane painless animal death after living a full life? (given that every being has to die, anyway)? What about lab-grown muscle fiber? Again, I honestly appreciate the fact that you have a low tolerance for hypocrisy/cognitive-dissonance (at least in this area), and I fully admit this is a dissonance I am actively maintaining. I'm... trying to get out of it. Self-honesty turns out to be the most difficult honesty...

fnovd 8y ago
Unfortunately there is a part of our brain that just wants to eat the stuff we're used to eating. It's really hard to change your diet, whether that's to lose weight, to mitigate a disease like diabetes, or to eat with your ethics. From my experience, the most successful way to cut out animal products from your diet is to have a passion for cooking. Trying out a new vegan recipe every week or so will start to build up your repertoire to the point where you're hankering for a dish that just happens to be vegan instead of consciously fighting against your desires.
uhtred 8y ago
Humane painless animal death after living a full life? How can you humanely kill something which does not want to die? No matter how painless, if you killed me and I had not asked you to, it would not be humane.
- pmarreck 8y ago
  Actually, if you asked me to kill you and I did, I'd still get arrested due to anti-euthanasia laws (depending on jurisdiction!) Using your reasoning, we should happily eat any animal (possibly including human, but animals also commit suicide sometimes) that suicided... I think death is an inherently ugly thing no matter how you approach it, and given the existence of carnivores and omnivores who are not vultures waiting for food to die before consuming it, I don't think killing in nature for food is avoidable. Pain avoidance is much easier to reason about, however. Like it or not, we are part of the natural world and its strange rules of engagement. Having just watched a hyena eat a wildebeest alive (someone in the comments here posted it), I have to wonder if humans are not the most "humane" killers-for-sustenance on the planet. The most ethical thing we can do (other than creating meat in a lab such as what Impossible Foods is doing... I'm a fan), IMHO, other than go vegan, is to be as humane as possible about the killing bit, give animals as full a life as we can, even if we intend to eat them towards the end of their lives. I believe that one day (possibly in the far future), every human will be vegan. I can't say that it's reasonable to expect everyone to be vegan now, though. The French love their cheese, the Germans love their liverwurst and bratwurst, the Italians love their pizza, and the Japanese love their sushi. I am a huge fan of grilled chicken, eggs and sushi (and the VERY occasional burger or bratwurst... I'm ethnically German, btw) and the wide variety of cheeses out there... these things would be extremely hard for me to give up, so my fallback position, for now, is to obtain these things in as humane a way as is possible for me right now. I commend your veganism, regardless. It is admirable and it is an ideal you have attained in this time and it should be emulated.
  - uhtred 8y ago
    But a hyena is a carnivore. Humans are not. A hyena cannot contemplate the finality of death and probably doesn't understand much about the pain it's causing, it's just eating a meal. Humans do understand all those things and on top of that humans do not need to eat meat and are very possibly healthier without it, yet we continue to do so. Also, nearly all meat consumed by humans comes from factory farms which deprive the victims of even at least a natural life up to the point of death. It's a life of emotional and physical torture from birth. What makes you think any animals raised for meat get to live a long life before being killed? Most won't make it to 1 year... After all, who would eat old tough meat? Given that most people in the west can easily get to a fully stocked grocery store with more variety of legumes, grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds not to mention tofu, tempeh, seitan, cashew cheese, ready made vegan goods like beyond burgers, pizzas, vegan egg, vegan sausage... To me it seems incredibly cruel to continue to eat animals and their eggs and milk. We don't need to do it anymore and to continue to do so is willfully supporting cruelty against animals.

fnovd 8y ago

Unfortunately there is a part of our brain that just wants to eat the stuff we're used to eating. It's really hard to change your diet, whether that's to lose weight, to mitigate a disease like diabetes, or to eat with your ethics. From my experience, the most successful way to cut out animal products from your diet is to have a passion for cooking. Trying out a new vegan recipe every week or so will start to build up your repertoire to the point where you're hankering for a dish that just happens to be vegan instead of consciously fighting against your desires.

uhtred 8y ago

Humane painless animal death after living a full life? How can you humanely kill something which does not want to die? No matter how painless, if you killed me and I had not asked you to, it would not be humane.

pmarreck 8y ago
Actually, if you asked me to kill you and I did, I'd still get arrested due to anti-euthanasia laws (depending on jurisdiction!) Using your reasoning, we should happily eat any animal (possibly including human, but animals also commit suicide sometimes) that suicided... I think death is an inherently ugly thing no matter how you approach it, and given the existence of carnivores and omnivores who are not vultures waiting for food to die before consuming it, I don't think killing in nature for food is avoidable. Pain avoidance is much easier to reason about, however. Like it or not, we are part of the natural world and its strange rules of engagement. Having just watched a hyena eat a wildebeest alive (someone in the comments here posted it), I have to wonder if humans are not the most "humane" killers-for-sustenance on the planet. The most ethical thing we can do (other than creating meat in a lab such as what Impossible Foods is doing... I'm a fan), IMHO, other than go vegan, is to be as humane as possible about the killing bit, give animals as full a life as we can, even if we intend to eat them towards the end of their lives. I believe that one day (possibly in the far future), every human will be vegan. I can't say that it's reasonable to expect everyone to be vegan now, though. The French love their cheese, the Germans love their liverwurst and bratwurst, the Italians love their pizza, and the Japanese love their sushi. I am a huge fan of grilled chicken, eggs and sushi (and the VERY occasional burger or bratwurst... I'm ethnically German, btw) and the wide variety of cheeses out there... these things would be extremely hard for me to give up, so my fallback position, for now, is to obtain these things in as humane a way as is possible for me right now. I commend your veganism, regardless. It is admirable and it is an ideal you have attained in this time and it should be emulated.
- uhtred 8y ago
  But a hyena is a carnivore. Humans are not. A hyena cannot contemplate the finality of death and probably doesn't understand much about the pain it's causing, it's just eating a meal. Humans do understand all those things and on top of that humans do not need to eat meat and are very possibly healthier without it, yet we continue to do so. Also, nearly all meat consumed by humans comes from factory farms which deprive the victims of even at least a natural life up to the point of death. It's a life of emotional and physical torture from birth. What makes you think any animals raised for meat get to live a long life before being killed? Most won't make it to 1 year... After all, who would eat old tough meat? Given that most people in the west can easily get to a fully stocked grocery store with more variety of legumes, grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds not to mention tofu, tempeh, seitan, cashew cheese, ready made vegan goods like beyond burgers, pizzas, vegan egg, vegan sausage... To me it seems incredibly cruel to continue to eat animals and their eggs and milk. We don't need to do it anymore and to continue to do so is willfully supporting cruelty against animals.