3 ms·

We're moving closer to it. Vegetarianism and veganism used to be much more fringe just a few decades ago than they are now. Animal right groups and laws didn'

We're moving closer to it. Vegetarianism and veganism used to be much more fringe just a few decades ago than they are now. Animal right groups and laws didn't exist until relatively recently as well. Understanding and valuing ecology and every species role in it as well is relatively new (at least among non-indigenous people) and making a difference in how we treat animals as well. There's also a lot of research in to how animals view and understand the world, how they communicate, how much they understand and feel, and how they differ (or don't) from humans. That's also opening people's eyes. I'm usually pretty pessimistic, but on this issue I am cautiously optimistic that we are moving in the right direction.

DangitBobby 5y ago
After millennia, humans still hate each other on no other basis than skin pigmentation despite our brains being hard-wired to be socially cooperative with other members of our species to boost chances of survival. I have heard arguments against animal rights where the key argument was that humans are intellectually superior and thus it is our right to treat animals however it conveniences us. As smart as some people are, most people are not very sophisticated, especially when it comes to morality, which people mainly wield as a matter of convenience to themselves. My faith in humanity has declined the more I've seen what it's capable of. Tellingly (to me), despite some non-negligible percentage of the population becoming more sensitive to the plight of animals, the scale of animal cruelty today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. I see the modest gains in the population of vegetarians as a pyrrhic victory that would not have been possible with, perversely, the common knowledge of the current scale and scope of modern animal cruelty.
- yesenadam 5y ago
  > Tellingly...the scale of animal cruelty today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. "Tellingly"? What does it tell? The scale of X (for almost all X) today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. I wish when people say something is telling, they'd say what it tells them, but they usually don't. (It's like saying "Of course" or "Obviously". Rhetorically effective maybe, but doesn't help communication. They are a kind of bluff.) > I see the modest gains in the population of vegetarians as a pyrrhic victory that would not have been possible with, perversely, the common knowledge of the current scale and scope of modern animal cruelty. Sorry, I really tried, but can't work out what you are trying to say here. (It feels like at least a triple-layered negative.) Could you put it more simply? Seems like you're maybe saying "If more people knew the horrors of modern animal cruelty there would be less vegetarians", but that reading makes no sense to me. It's a very confusing, unclear sentence anyway.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    I should have said "scope", because I don't mean just by pure numbers. I mean that our current treatment of billions of animals is worse than it has ever been due to factory farming. As in, it's not just the sheer number of animals, we have somehow regressed and are more cruel to each individual animal in the name of efficiency. I think the only reason there is a higher percentage of vegetarians now is how widely publicized that information is, not because the average human has evolved and can be expected to have a moral framework which incoporates non-humans. There wouldn't be as many vegetarians if some people weren't currently being so obviously needlessly cruel. And then there's the impact that our activities have on wildlife that we aren't intending to harm. We know we are causing harm, though, so much so that we regularly drive animals to extinction. We also know we are currently driving a mass extinction event but that seems to barely register on our list of concerns. I don't see any meaningful action right now towards addressing this. I honestly hear so, so little about it, even when we are discussing the impacts of climate change. I kind of forgot about it myself during this discussion. So in summary, I see us as being willfully cruel to some and fully indifferent to others and ultimately I think we have gotten worse over the years, not better. If I were an animal, I would much rather have shared the planet with humans from 1000 or even 100 years ago than with humans from today, and I believe the trend continues. Hope that clears things up.
    - yesenadam 5y ago
      Yeah thanks, sadly that all seems true. Not to mention fishing the oceans to exhaustion. (Vegan here for 30 years)

DangitBobby 5y ago

After millennia, humans still hate each other on no other basis than skin pigmentation despite our brains being hard-wired to be socially cooperative with other members of our species to boost chances of survival. I have heard arguments against animal rights where the key argument was that humans are intellectually superior and thus it is our right to treat animals however it conveniences us. As smart as some people are, most people are not very sophisticated, especially when it comes to morality, which people mainly wield as a matter of convenience to themselves. My faith in humanity has declined the more I've seen what it's capable of. Tellingly (to me), despite some non-negligible percentage of the population becoming more sensitive to the plight of animals, the scale of animal cruelty today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. I see the modest gains in the population of vegetarians as a pyrrhic victory that would not have been possible with, perversely, the common knowledge of the current scale and scope of modern animal cruelty.

yesenadam 5y ago
> Tellingly...the scale of animal cruelty today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. "Tellingly"? What does it tell? The scale of X (for almost all X) today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. I wish when people say something is telling, they'd say what it tells them, but they usually don't. (It's like saying "Of course" or "Obviously". Rhetorically effective maybe, but doesn't help communication. They are a kind of bluff.) > I see the modest gains in the population of vegetarians as a pyrrhic victory that would not have been possible with, perversely, the common knowledge of the current scale and scope of modern animal cruelty. Sorry, I really tried, but can't work out what you are trying to say here. (It feels like at least a triple-layered negative.) Could you put it more simply? Seems like you're maybe saying "If more people knew the horrors of modern animal cruelty there would be less vegetarians", but that reading makes no sense to me. It's a very confusing, unclear sentence anyway.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  I should have said "scope", because I don't mean just by pure numbers. I mean that our current treatment of billions of animals is worse than it has ever been due to factory farming. As in, it's not just the sheer number of animals, we have somehow regressed and are more cruel to each individual animal in the name of efficiency. I think the only reason there is a higher percentage of vegetarians now is how widely publicized that information is, not because the average human has evolved and can be expected to have a moral framework which incoporates non-humans. There wouldn't be as many vegetarians if some people weren't currently being so obviously needlessly cruel. And then there's the impact that our activities have on wildlife that we aren't intending to harm. We know we are causing harm, though, so much so that we regularly drive animals to extinction. We also know we are currently driving a mass extinction event but that seems to barely register on our list of concerns. I don't see any meaningful action right now towards addressing this. I honestly hear so, so little about it, even when we are discussing the impacts of climate change. I kind of forgot about it myself during this discussion. So in summary, I see us as being willfully cruel to some and fully indifferent to others and ultimately I think we have gotten worse over the years, not better. If I were an animal, I would much rather have shared the planet with humans from 1000 or even 100 years ago than with humans from today, and I believe the trend continues. Hope that clears things up.
  - yesenadam 5y ago
    Yeah thanks, sadly that all seems true. Not to mention fishing the oceans to exhaustion. (Vegan here for 30 years)