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this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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So is driving. Vegetables are bad for you too, they quite literally have built defenses to prevent being eaten and we still eat them. To much and they're actually legitimately bad for us. Plants also make connections and trees use mycelial networks to communicate and are able to tell apart individual trees, are able to hear distress calls and can respond and even send nutrients to that specific tree.
Animal consciousness is hardly known and people use that as a metric for plants when they've been around for much longer. Just because we don't understand something and have yet to uncover how it works doesn't mean it isn't happening on a daily basis.
And yet you know what? I'm here today because I have survived life by consuming other plants and animals. I have lived my life doing good deeds and done my best to help those around me, working for non-profit performing arts and events. I rescued a dog whose owners were just going to abandon her in the woods with a bag of food, and she lives a happy life now giving me snuggles every morning. And if continuing that means I get to enjoy bacon and beef in a moderate omnivorous way, that's what life and being human is. If I starve or deprive myself of the series of joys that help keep me positive and the cost of that is an animal that feeds multiple people like myself then that is a worthy sacrifice for the animal. The fact that vegans have such a high risk of nutrient deficiencies is pretty telling as to how we use multiple sources to collect what we need. Also the fact that like, a majority of the animals on the planet are omnivorous. Deer will eat chicks. Happily.
I don't agree with factory farming. I don't agree with wood harvesting (it's pretty devastating to the ecosystems in Oregon that have had these forests for hundreds of years before settlers started clearings). I don't agree with driving. And yet, I recognize that all of these are byproducts of what society has deemed as necessary. I don't agree with factory farming, but hundreds of thousands more people would be starving without it - local farms just cannot take the meat demand nor the crop demand when meat inevitably falls and plant consumption rises. This is why it's good to look into full spectrum reduction. People using local farms more, sometimes supplementing lab-grown and vegetarian options to reduce factory farming in hopes to minimize its need as much as possible. I don't agree with wood harvesting, but hundreds of thousands of people would be without shelter, fire, and transportation maintenance (mostly for railways, already something that is greatly suffering). I don't agree with driving, but I recognize that as a result of our work culture it is essentially a necessity again because without me getting to my job I do not survive. Personally, I don't have my drivers license and mostly bus and walk. I think we should be looking into road grids, alternative tires, and pushing more for automated driving. The overall cost of energy can be supplemented and is less toxic than 200 million tires a year wearing rubber into the air. Bonus: automated grids also would reduce gas consumption. Of course, lobbyists exist and that's why this is a pipe dream.
Hopefully you see my point in this. You can do everything in your power to control what you want, but we can only control how we help the people around us. Being condescending about the omnivorous human eating meat is a net negative to the world because you are only pushing people away from being in the reductive mindset, while simultaneously missing the mindset of who you're trying to make a point to. People who eat meat either genuinely do not believe they have certain capacities and that makes it ok. Again, what you say is not effective to these people. The other people are people who do believe that animals have more capacities than we realize, and still make the choice for a variety of reasons. It could be food aversions and meat is their primary thing. It could be something related to what I've already explained. It could even be that there are people who have the capacity to eat something they love. Something that humans have historically done. Cattle made you rich, you wanted those cows alive and you love those cows. And yet, when it's that cows time because you and your family are hungry and need to sell its meat. The only difference between an animal and a plant is that you're the one humanizing only the animal - apparently plants don't make the cut for your respect? Cause you are just as much of a murderer as the rest of us in that regard.*
German forester Peter Wohlleben dubbed this network the “woodwide web,” as it is through the mycelium that trees “communicate.”
lol
* And that right there is your fallacy. Eating an animal isn't inherently evil or bad, not any more so than raising chickens for their eggs and eventual meat. I'm sure it could be, but I would argue that first and foremost disrespecting the animal is. There's nothing wrong with eating plants, but if you step on the lettuce and carrots you're wasting food. It was raised just like the lamb was, and yet the lamb was turned into a beautiful lamb au vin, whereas the lettuce and carrots were turned to mush.
For what it's worth, I only mostly disagree with you. I wouldn't have written something so long because I disagree with you entirely, and I think I try to be fair about moderation and what is unreasonable in my points. I 100% agree that there are issues with meat in our society and that factory farming is disrespectful to the animal and it as a human construction is evil, particularly in the U.S. more so than other countries. But it's also a necessity for people's survival because we are poor. Meat in moderation is not any worse for you than vegetables in moderation, factory farming is bad for the environment but that doesn't mean that all farming is, nor do innocent animals have to be "murdered" in order for someone to enjoy meat. There are more options than just animals now, we're living in a crazy world.
You just wrote a whole book for me? Anyway, plantbased is the future :)
I think lab grown meat is the future. To each their own.
Just to point out that you stated that factory farming is bad for the environment, but it is actually the most sustainable form of animal agriculture with respect to the environment. With factory farming the entire process has been optimized for cost (don't forget the entire point of the animal agriculture industry is to make money). What is not prioritized is the animal welfare, in any regard. In the stereotypically rich countries such as the UK, Switzerland, the US and Australia it is still standard practice to gas pigs to death, similar to the gas chambers used in WW2, send all male chicks to death through a giant macerator and other truely horrific forms of torture and death.
If you then look at the other side, in where there are animals in green fields living "happy lives" then this has the greatest, by far, impact on the environment. The amount of farming land needed to sustain the current world-wide meat and dairy consumption using the non factory-farmed animals far far exceeds the available land mass that we have, which is the reason factory farms exist. Where there is a demand, there needs to be a supply.
And when it comes to the difference between plants and animals, there is a fundamental difference that we need to consider - do plants suffer? As most (sane) people are against animal cruelty we need to ask ourselves what that actually means. Most people would answer that they don't want the animals to suffer. The reason we, and animals, suffer is because we have a consciousness and have the ability to feel pain through our nervous system - plants do not have this ability. So when you compare pulling a carrot from the ground to slicing a cows neck where the cow screams and thrashes and clearly does not want to die - it's pretty disingenuous.
My last point is that you make the statement that due to us having historically eaten meat and dairy that implies that gives us justification to continue. There are many horrible things humans have done in history (kill, rape) and we have built our current ethical and moral viewpoints from constantly improving, and striving to improve, as a species.
Most of us lucky enough to even be here in this small community that are likely the people that live in wealthy enough countries where there is a choice we can make 3 times a day to reduce causing needless suffering to these animals. Where I live in Europe, and many other countries now, I can simply buy plant milk instead of cow milk when eating my cereal, or one of the many plant alternatives. And of course this doesn't apply to everyone on the planet, some people are forced to consume animal products due to the system they live in but for most people reading this there is a choice.
I strongly recommend watching this documentary to see what the animal agriculture industry truly is: Dominion (2018) - full documentary
It's quite late where I am but tomorrow I will edit and add sources to my claims.