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Why would we die out? I've not seen a convincing arguement about the arable land thing once you factor in the freed up capacity we use to feed animals. B12 supp

Why would we die out? I've not seen a convincing arguement about the arable land thing once you factor in the freed up capacity we use to feed animals. B12 supplements are cultured from bacteria. "Getting everything" from plants is no more difficult than culturing cows etc on a huge scale as we do now. It's just different to what people are used to.

noxer 6y ago
Well we would not literally die out just a lot people would die. No one know how many people could survive but clearly far less than there are now. Veganism isn't only about not eating some snuff. It's about abstaining from the use of all animal products for all possible use cases. People who call them self vegans obviously all have their own definition because it's simply impossible to not use animal products they may stop at drinking milk or using leather for clothing while other wouldn't even sit on leather. But all of them completely ignore that literally everything around us is somehow an animal product or animals where used in the production. Fossil energy for example that is partially an animal product. It's also made from plants ofc but since you cant separate it you would not be able to use it. By that alone, so by removing fossil fuel from humanity we would already kill a really large portion of humans. You could spin that even further and realizes that humans are animals too (yes we are ;D ). The whole concept of veganism is a religion-like nonsense idea that works for everyone who wants it to work because everyone defined their rules how they see fit. But if you look at it from scientific point of view its just people fooling them-self to feel better/morally superior pretty much like a religion. Yes modern world can synthesize B12 but a vegan wold could defensively not. Its just very very ignorant if someone thinks that there is no use of animal products in the production line of synthesized B12.
- pgcj_poster 6y ago
  The idea of veganism is that humans shouldn't oppress other sentient beings for our own gain—it's not an aversion to organic material that happens to lack a cell wall. Fossil fuels are made from dead animals, but unlike, say chicken nuggets, we don't produce fossil fuels by breeding billions of animals to live in some of the worst conditions imaginable up until their slaughter. Likewise, humans are animals, but their labor is typically voluntary, paid, and non-fatal. When we treat humans the same way we treat non-human animals, it's called "chattel slavery," and that's not vegan either.
  - noxer 6y ago
    Like I said "all have their own definition". If you are fine with using animal products if they did not suffer because of humans, you still can't use fossil fuel because obviously your goal then is to avoid animal suffering and billions of animals suffered and died as a direct consequence of humans using fossil fuel. Veganism can be turned and twisted however one wants its either based on total flawed concept or the only real solution would be to remove humans form earth. Which would guarantee no further bad effects due to us but it would certainly not stop animal suffering for millions of years to come.
    - pgcj_poster 6y ago
      I didn't say "humans should never cause animals to suffer." I said that humans shouldn't oppress animals, meaning that we shouldn't treat them as commodities and we should respect their rights. Obviously it's impossible to never cause any animal suffer, just as it's impossible to never cause any human to suffer. For instance, if you don't donate all of your available organs, you're causing another human to suffer and die. We accept that, because we'd rather live in a society where people have rights over their own bodies, even if it hurts others. However, just because you can't avoid hurting other humans sometimes, that doesn't mean that you're justified in enslaving, murdering, and eating humans. Likewise, it's wrong to do any of those things to animals, even if human civilization inevitably hurts animals sometimes. If you want to go from a pure act-utilitarian perspective (which is psychologically impossible, hence rule-utilitarianism), then indeed, you would not technically be a vegan, because you wouldn't hold any special principal regarding the use of animal products. However, if you were maximizing utility, you still wouldn't eat meat or dairy products, because those things cause massive suffering to animals, and cause environmental damage, with no benefit (except taste and slightly easier access to B12) to humans living in developed economies.
      - noxer 6y ago
        >humans shouldn't oppress animals, meaning that we shouldn't treat them as commodities and we should respect their rights. That however is not even veganism anymore. >However, if you were maximizing utility, you still wouldn't eat meat or dairy products, because those things cause massive suffering to animals... Humans have been doing animal population control since hundreds of years because we eat them. If we would not eat them we would need to find a non-lethal way to do that (which would probably still not respect their assumed rights), else many animals would have massive suffering too. Nature never optimizes to reduce suffering it optimizes for survival. That's why a prey population can grows drastically faster than "healthy" and then gets reduced either by a predator population or the lack of resources. These circles repeat forever and humans have been "counter hunting" since hundreds of years for food and other animal products but also because we do not want exploding populations followed by mass extinction (sometimes called plagues). So if you really would want to maximizing utility and minimize suffering you would almost certainly have to go some middle way that does justify killing animals if it reduces more death and at that point it would be unethical to let the killed animal go to waist. That however doesn't work if animals should have the same rights as humans. And it also doesn't work with any popular interpretation of veganism.

noxer 6y ago

Well we would not literally die out just a lot people would die. No one know how many people could survive but clearly far less than there are now. Veganism isn't only about not eating some snuff. It's about abstaining from the use of all animal products for all possible use cases. People who call them self vegans obviously all have their own definition because it's simply impossible to not use animal products they may stop at drinking milk or using leather for clothing while other wouldn't even sit on leather. But all of them completely ignore that literally everything around us is somehow an animal product or animals where used in the production. Fossil energy for example that is partially an animal product. It's also made from plants ofc but since you cant separate it you would not be able to use it. By that alone, so by removing fossil fuel from humanity we would already kill a really large portion of humans. You could spin that even further and realizes that humans are animals too (yes we are ;D ). The whole concept of veganism is a religion-like nonsense idea that works for everyone who wants it to work because everyone defined their rules how they see fit. But if you look at it from scientific point of view its just people fooling them-self to feel better/morally superior pretty much like a religion. Yes modern world can synthesize B12 but a vegan wold could defensively not. Its just very very ignorant if someone thinks that there is no use of animal products in the production line of synthesized B12.

pgcj_poster 6y ago
The idea of veganism is that humans shouldn't oppress other sentient beings for our own gain—it's not an aversion to organic material that happens to lack a cell wall. Fossil fuels are made from dead animals, but unlike, say chicken nuggets, we don't produce fossil fuels by breeding billions of animals to live in some of the worst conditions imaginable up until their slaughter. Likewise, humans are animals, but their labor is typically voluntary, paid, and non-fatal. When we treat humans the same way we treat non-human animals, it's called "chattel slavery," and that's not vegan either.
- noxer 6y ago
  Like I said "all have their own definition". If you are fine with using animal products if they did not suffer because of humans, you still can't use fossil fuel because obviously your goal then is to avoid animal suffering and billions of animals suffered and died as a direct consequence of humans using fossil fuel. Veganism can be turned and twisted however one wants its either based on total flawed concept or the only real solution would be to remove humans form earth. Which would guarantee no further bad effects due to us but it would certainly not stop animal suffering for millions of years to come.
  - pgcj_poster 6y ago
    I didn't say "humans should never cause animals to suffer." I said that humans shouldn't oppress animals, meaning that we shouldn't treat them as commodities and we should respect their rights. Obviously it's impossible to never cause any animal suffer, just as it's impossible to never cause any human to suffer. For instance, if you don't donate all of your available organs, you're causing another human to suffer and die. We accept that, because we'd rather live in a society where people have rights over their own bodies, even if it hurts others. However, just because you can't avoid hurting other humans sometimes, that doesn't mean that you're justified in enslaving, murdering, and eating humans. Likewise, it's wrong to do any of those things to animals, even if human civilization inevitably hurts animals sometimes. If you want to go from a pure act-utilitarian perspective (which is psychologically impossible, hence rule-utilitarianism), then indeed, you would not technically be a vegan, because you wouldn't hold any special principal regarding the use of animal products. However, if you were maximizing utility, you still wouldn't eat meat or dairy products, because those things cause massive suffering to animals, and cause environmental damage, with no benefit (except taste and slightly easier access to B12) to humans living in developed economies.
    - noxer 6y ago
      >humans shouldn't oppress animals, meaning that we shouldn't treat them as commodities and we should respect their rights. That however is not even veganism anymore. >However, if you were maximizing utility, you still wouldn't eat meat or dairy products, because those things cause massive suffering to animals... Humans have been doing animal population control since hundreds of years because we eat them. If we would not eat them we would need to find a non-lethal way to do that (which would probably still not respect their assumed rights), else many animals would have massive suffering too. Nature never optimizes to reduce suffering it optimizes for survival. That's why a prey population can grows drastically faster than "healthy" and then gets reduced either by a predator population or the lack of resources. These circles repeat forever and humans have been "counter hunting" since hundreds of years for food and other animal products but also because we do not want exploding populations followed by mass extinction (sometimes called plagues). So if you really would want to maximizing utility and minimize suffering you would almost certainly have to go some middle way that does justify killing animals if it reduces more death and at that point it would be unethical to let the killed animal go to waist. That however doesn't work if animals should have the same rights as humans. And it also doesn't work with any popular interpretation of veganism.