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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32956 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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And there are things that impact the bottom line that mean better welfare for the animals.

Nature doesn't maximize suffering either. What's your point?

I'm glad you brought up sick animals because that reminded me that organic livestock cannot be given antibiotics. That would affect the bottom line, you see.

Many vegans I've spoken with would order their preferences as (nature) > farming > ranching. But my claim is that they should have preferences of farming > ranching > (nature).

This is not unlike atheists telling Christians what they should believe. Vegans in my experience are first and foremost concerned with the effects of human actions.

I'm very confused why you keep seeing this as a purely hypothetical question. What do you think happens to ranch land if all the farm animals go away? Usually the land used for ranching isn't great for farming in the first place. Its more likely to just go back to a wild state of nature.

I am similarly confused why this simple point is not coming through. You don't get to harm one group of animals just because otherwise another group of animals would be harmed through some other mechanism that has nothing to do with you.

I simply do not care about what's going on in nature.

Nature doesn't maximize suffering either. What's your point?

Nature is neutral toward suffering. Eating animals for meat is slightly against suffering.

I'm glad you brought up sick animals because that reminded me that organic livestock cannot be given antibiotics. That would affect the bottom line, you see.

I'm not sure why things have to be organic?

This is not unlike atheists telling Christians what they should believe.

I happen to agree with the atheists pretty often. If you say your bible is sacred and its word is to be taken literally, and your book says to stone adulterers, why aren't you stoning adulterers? This seems fine to me to point out logical contradictions in other people's beliefs.

Vegans in my experience are first and foremost concerned with the effects of human actions.

Going back to the Amazon Rain Forest. Human action is required no matter what. Even "leaving it as is" requires human action in the form of enforcement. Its cut down the trees and plant crops, cut down the trees and graze animals, or shoot trespassers trying to cut down the trees. The same thing happened in the US, the formation of US national parks on the east coast often first involved evicting people that lived there.

Humans are a dominant species on this planet. In the West, if an area is left underutilized by humans, it is often by human choice.

I am similarly confused why this simple point is not coming through. You don't get to harm one group of animals just because otherwise another group of animals would be harmed through some other mechanism that has nothing to do with you.

It does have to do with us though. Nature needs that land. Ranchers need that land. Farmers need that land. You take raw land and you mix it with a thing, and you either wind up with a vegan approved diet or suffering animals. Torture planet isn't across the galaxy doing its thing without our input. No its like they are next door and we are shipping them food to keep the humans alive so they can continually be tortured. We could deny the torture machine resources!

I simply do not care about what's going on in nature.

I very much understand this perspective. There are no humans in nature, and so I generally don't care about the suffering taking place in Nature either. But you also said are not a vegan, and you also haven't proclaimed to care about the suffering of animals as a reason for being vegan. My point is not addressed to you. It is addressed to vegans who claim to be vegan because they care about the suffering of animals. I can't imagine a vegan walking along a path in the forest when a fawn falls off a ledge and breaks its legs in front of the vegan, the vegan steps over its trembling body with a smile on their face and say "well at least the suffering is only happening from nature's hands!" Where as if the fawn had jumped off the ledge after being scared by a human the vegan would instead cry out in horror and rush to save the animal.

I take most Vegans at their word that they genuinely care about the suffering of animals. I don't think they carve out exceptions for how the suffering was caused. I'm not likely to ask one next time I meet them in person, just like I don't go up to Christrians and ask "how do you feel about all your non-christian friends going to hell". There was one Vegan in this thread, but I think they left after getting a bit piled on.

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