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Good point. But I would argue that we refrain from killing each others because it's no longer in our best interest to do so. We can afford to feed everyone and

Good point. But I would argue that we refrain from killing each others because it's no longer in our best interest to do so. We can afford to feed everyone and give everyone a decent life without killing each other. Also saving people gives us a bigger pool of talented people and diverse genetics. When we cannot give each other a decent life, we resort to mass killing (even today) - think of all the wars started due to hunger or ethnic reasons. My point was that we are responsible for the safety and prosperity of each other, not any animal. We have no obligation towards the safety of some animal. Evolution tells us that we have to care about the survival of our species. And in certain cases, we will help animals but primarily where helping them helps us (for example, to maintain stable ecosystem). As for dogs and cats, we use them for our benefit - we feed them, protect them, give them a good life for our own benefit - because they have evolved to make them seem cute and domesticating them makes us happy and gives us mental comfort. This makes them happy at the same time (but that's a side-effect, not the intended effect in most cases)

wander_homer 5y ago
> We can afford to feed everyone and give everyone a decent life without killing each other. Also saving people gives us a bigger pool of talented people and diverse genetics. We can also afford to feed everyone without harming so many animals. In fact, reducing our reliance on animal products is likely the only and much more efficient way to feed everyone. And not only that, we're also destroying whole ecosystems because of our unnecessarily large demand on animal products, which in consequence causes huge problems for future generations. So harming animals less is definitely in our interest. > When we cannot give each other a decent life, we resort to mass killing (even today) - think of all the wars started due to hunger or ethnic reasons. I'm also thinking of all the wars yet to come, because of the consequences of climate change or uninhabitable areas, which both were (among other things) caused by our ridiculously high meat consumption in a few wealthy countries. > My point was that we are responsible for the safety and prosperity of each other, not any animal. The fact that people even have to fight for children to not get abused for us having some luxuries (rare minerals for the latest smartwatch or phone, coffee beans, chocolate,...), should make it clear that we don't feel responsible for each other on a grand scale. There's a varying degree of responsibility and it quickly vanishes with greater physical distance to each other and the less we feel connected in one way or another. And it's not uncommon to feel more responsible for animals than for humans. Like my neighbor's cat is treated better than those children working in some mines or farms, also because it's more beneficial to some of us to treat those children badly. Or to put it differently, responsibility for other human beings which are outside of our closer groups is nothing that comes naturally or just is or is even necessary for our survival. It's something we had to come up with on our own with our ethics. So we have to fight for it and constantly remind ourselves about it or otherwise we keep doing all the horrors we still do to each other (e.g. slavery). It's no different than our ethical beliefs in other regards, e.g. animal suffering.

wander_homer 5y ago

> We can afford to feed everyone and give everyone a decent life without killing each other. Also saving people gives us a bigger pool of talented people and diverse genetics. We can also afford to feed everyone without harming so many animals. In fact, reducing our reliance on animal products is likely the only and much more efficient way to feed everyone. And not only that, we're also destroying whole ecosystems because of our unnecessarily large demand on animal products, which in consequence causes huge problems for future generations. So harming animals less is definitely in our interest. > When we cannot give each other a decent life, we resort to mass killing (even today) - think of all the wars started due to hunger or ethnic reasons. I'm also thinking of all the wars yet to come, because of the consequences of climate change or uninhabitable areas, which both were (among other things) caused by our ridiculously high meat consumption in a few wealthy countries. > My point was that we are responsible for the safety and prosperity of each other, not any animal. The fact that people even have to fight for children to not get abused for us having some luxuries (rare minerals for the latest smartwatch or phone, coffee beans, chocolate,...), should make it clear that we don't feel responsible for each other on a grand scale. There's a varying degree of responsibility and it quickly vanishes with greater physical distance to each other and the less we feel connected in one way or another. And it's not uncommon to feel more responsible for animals than for humans. Like my neighbor's cat is treated better than those children working in some mines or farms, also because it's more beneficial to some of us to treat those children badly. Or to put it differently, responsibility for other human beings which are outside of our closer groups is nothing that comes naturally or just is or is even necessary for our survival. It's something we had to come up with on our own with our ethics. So we have to fight for it and constantly remind ourselves about it or otherwise we keep doing all the horrors we still do to each other (e.g. slavery). It's no different than our ethical beliefs in other regards, e.g. animal suffering.